Books and Manuscripts

Roberts, David
The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, & Nubia
New York: D. Appleton & Co., (1856). In six volumes. First American edition. 4to. Illustrated with 248 numbered and tinted lithographic plates by Louis Haghe after Roberts's drawings (including illustrated title-pages in each volume and frontispieces in Vols. I, III, IV, V, and VI), and two maps; each with original tissue guard. Contemporary three-quarter brown morocco over purple cloth-covered boards, stamped in gilt, boards and extremities rubbed, joints rubbed with scattered wear; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers; contemporary ownership signature in pencil on verso of front free endpapers and at head of each title-page.

A superb copy of the rare first American edition of Roberts's monumental work on the Holy Land. Roberts was the first British artist to sketch the monuments of Ancient Egypt, traveling some 800 miles south of Cairo in a short two-month span in 1838. He produced more than one hundred sketches while on his travels which were then exquisitely printed in lithography by Louis Haghe.

This is only the second copy of the American edition we can locate in the auction record since 1972.