Picturesque Tour from Geneva to Milan, by Way of the Simplon: Illustrated with Thirty Six Coloured Views of the Most Striking Scenes and of the Principal Works belonging to the New Road Constructed over that Mountain, Engraved from Designs by J. and J. Lory, of Neufchatel; and Accompanied with Particulars Historical and Descriptive.

SCHOBERL, Frederic.

Edité par LondonR. Ackermann ., 1820

A propos de cet article

FIRST EDITION. 4to. (28 x 19 cm). Title; Preface, 3 leaves; List of Plates, 1 leaf; pp. 1-136. Later half chocolate-brown morocco over marbled boards, spine with raised bands and gilt in compartments, complementary gilt-lettered red and green morocco labels, renewed endpapers, edges uncut. Engraved map frontispiece "Plan of the Road of the Simplon" and 36 aquatinted plates with original hand-colouring all bearing Ackermann's imprint dated 1820 except for the "Bridge of Crevola".* Minor offsetting from the plates, generally and excellent copy. Frederic Schoberl (1775-1853) was an English journalist, writer, illustrator, translator, editor, who was long associated with Ackermann's Repository of Arts, one of the foremost Regency periodicals. The Picturesque Tour comprises a "connected tour from Geneva through the Valais, over the new road constructed by command of the late ruler of France across the Simplon, to Lake Maggiore, and by the Lake of Como to Milan". Schoberl writes in the preface that "[I]t would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to select another tract of equal extent, in which [one] would find such diversity of scenery, embracing all that is wild, awful and sublime in the polar regions of everlasting ice and snow; all that is beautiful, picturesque and magnificent in the mountains, forests and waters of more temperate regions; and all that is soft, sweet and enchanting in the warmer skies, the kindlier breezes and the more luxuriant nature of southern Europe". The Simplon Pass had become the dominant route through the Alps after Napoleon had a road constructed in 1801-1805 to facilitate the movement of artillery through the mountains, thereby laying the route by which English tourists would later travel to Italy. The literary significance of the region in this period is significant; it is on the banks of Lake Geneva in 1816, for instance, that Lord Byron (quoted on p. 21), Mary Shelley, and Percy Bysshe Shelley had their infamous competition to write the best ghost story, from which the idea for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was born. The illustrators, Gabriel and Mathias Gabriel Lory, were prominent Swiss landscape painters, whose talents, Schoberl assures the reader, "will be a sufficient pledge for the accuracy and fidelity of the views contained in this volume" (Preface). Views include Geneva, Sion, Brieg, Simplon, Algaby, Lake Maggiore, Gondo, Isola Bella, Crevola, Sesto, Lake Como, and Milan. *According to Tooley, "[C]are should be taken to see that all the plates are dated 1820 as the book was issued later.with the title still dated 1820 but the plates of later dates, and the impressions of these later issues are considerably inferior to the originals" (Tooley, 359). However we have located another copy at York University in which the same plate is also lacking a date. (Tooley, 446).

N° de réf. du vendeur 57597

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Picturesque Tour from Geneva to Milan, by Way of the Simplon: Illustrated with Thirty Six Coloured Views of the Most Striking Scenes and of the Principal Works belonging to the New Road Constructed over that Mountain, Engraved from Designs by J. and J. Lory, of Neufchatel; and Accompanied with Particulars Historical and Descriptive.
• Éditeur: LondonR. Ackermann .
• Date de parution: 1820
• Reliure: Couverture rigide
• Édition: Edition originale
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • TRAVEL & EXPLORATION
  • ILLUSTRATED