The Beauties of the Bosphorus.
London: Virtue & Co., (1840). Later printing. Hardcover. A popular and handsome view book, first published in 1838, which went into many editions. This copy best as a breaker.
The British travel writer Julia S. H. Pardoe (1806-62), who, suffering from consumption, had been taken south early in her youth, accompanied her father to Constantinople in 1835 and was famous for her literary reports on Portugal and the Near East even as a child. "Since Lady Mary Wortley Montagu probably no woman has acquired so intimate a knowledge of Turkey [. Her] works, written [.] in a pleasant and graceful style, attracted a large share of notice, and, as popular history, may still be read with pleasure" (DNB). - First published in 1838 with only 78 plates; later editions were published under the title "Picturesque Europe" (1854 and 1874). The pretty views are engraved after William Henry Bartlett (1809-54), whose series of oriental and American topography were then very popular (cf. Thieme/B. II, 554).
4to, frontispiece portrait of Miss Pardoe, engraved title page, [2]pp, plate, xii, (3)-164pp, ads [4]pp, 78 plates, map. Strong impressions of the steel engraved views of Turkey & the Danube, and a map. All edges gilt. The original front board present, the spine perished, with a hand lettered green cloth repair now coming detached. Rear board lacking. Fox spotting to frontispiece and at margins of decorative title page; most plates bright and clean, a few with minor fox spotting. As is. Item #22883
Price: $300.00