The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, & Nubia.

ROBERTS, David.

Item Number: 5736

London: Day & Son, 1855-56.

First quarto edition. Six volumes bound in three. Quarto, bound in full morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spines and front and rear panel, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In near fine condition. Contains 250 magnificent tinted lithographs.

“Roberts’ Holy Land has a world-wide reputation; nothing of a similar character has ever been produced that can bear a comparison with it” (Ran, 6). Louis Haghe, considered the foremost lithographer of his time, transferred the exquisitely detailed drawings to stone. This is the first quarto edition of 1855-56, containing all 250 lithographic plates contained in the folio edition, including a frontispiece portrait of Roberts, six pictorial title pages, and two engraved maps. Undoubtedly the most famous of these is Plate 240, the great sphinx, still commonly reproduced in poster art. A considerable number of plates are printed in two tints; plates 213 and 240 are printed in three. See Abbey Travel 385, 388; Tooley 401.