Twelve Views in the Interior of Guiana: from drawings executed after sketches taken during the expedition carried on in the years 1835 to 1839, under the direction of the Royal Geographical Society of London, and aided by Her Majesty's Government.

SCHOMBURGK, Robert Hermann, & Charles Bentley.

Edité par London: Ackermann and Co., 1840-41

A propos de cet article

First and only edition, this copy designated "proof copy" at the head of the title page. This beautiful suite of plates introduced the landscape and peoples of the newly consolidated territory of British Guiana to a Western audience. They were sketched by the expedition draughtsman, James Morrison, under Schomburgk's instruction, and finalized and prepared as lithographs by Charles Bentley in London. Shortly after the merging of Stabroek, Demerara, Berbice, and Essequibo into British Guiana in 1831, the Royal Geographical Society sent Robert Herman Schomburgk (1804-1865) to survey the borders and people of the new colony. During his expedition (1835-39), he not only documented many unvisited regions but also discovered a number of new species of flora, including the Schomburgkia orchid and the giant water lilyVictoria regia(now renamedVictoria amazonica, which is pictured on the title page). He was the first European to reach the sources of the Essequibo River and helped to debunk the legends of El Dorado and Lake Parime, theorizing that they arose from the misidentification of seasonal flooding in the Rupununi Savannah. He first published his findings in A Description of British Guiana, Geographical and Statistical (1840), followed by the present work in 1841. Twelve Views was issued (as per Abbey's copy) in stiff wrappers and was available to subscribers at £2.12s. 6d. uncoloured and four guineas coloured. The distinguished Maltese lithographer Maxim Gauci executed several plates, including the striking title page. Proof copies may have been produced to entice subscribers, as this example does not include the list of their names. It does, however, include the dedication to the whig grandee and connoisseur of the arts William Spencer Cavendish, sixth duke of Devonshire, with his gilt arms emblazoned at the head of the dedication leaf - an added inducement to tentative subscribers. The American bibliographer Henry Stevens (1819-1886) owned a presentation proof copy and describes it in his Humboldt Library (1863) as being "large paper. with the plates finely coloured in a very superior style" and "splendidly bound in morocco super extra". Another is listed in the library catalogue (1899) for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, but with no supporting detail. When published, the subscribers list numbered 373 individuals taking 396 copies, of which 346 were for the hand-coloured version. Alexander von Humboldt and Lady Jane Franklin, her address given as "Van Diemen's Land", took coloured copies, as did the gardener and architect Joseph Paxton, whose patron was the duke of Devonshire. Ten copies, more than anyone else, were taken by the Scottish cotton and sugar planter George Laing, who used enslaved labour on his Guyanese plantations. Abbey 720; Howgego II S12; Sabin 77796; Tooley 447. Folio. Hand-coloured additional lithograph title by Maxim Gauci after Charles Bentley, 12 hand-coloured lithographed plates by G. Barnard (7), M. Gauci (3), and Coke Smyth (2), engraved map with route marked in red, dedication leaf with arms printed in gilt, illustrations in text. Contemporary dark green combed cloth, sometime neatly rebacked, gilt title within ornamental floral frame to front cover, pale yellow endpapers. Issued without the list of subscribers. Binding judiciously refurbished, minor abrasions to cloth, some foxing, a few plates with light dust soiling or minor tears to margins, "Pure-Piapa" plate professionally reattached and with small remnants of old tape on verso at the gutter, plates bright: a very good copy.

N° de réf. du vendeur 177089

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Twelve Views in the Interior of Guiana: from drawings executed after sketches taken during the expedition carried on in the years 1835 to 1839, under the direction of the Royal Geographical Society of London, and aided by Her Majesty's Government.
• Éditeur: London: Ackermann and Co., 1840-41
• Édition: Edition originale