THE HISTORY OF THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. PETERS WESTMINSTER, ITS ANTIQUITIES AND MONUMENTS

First edition, first printing. Two volumes. Folio. Near contemporary full calf, elaborately ruled and decorated in gilt and blind, neatly backed preserving the original spine, with five raised bands, gilt decorated compartments and titles in gilt. Inner dentelles ruled and decorated in blind and gilt. All edges gilt. Half titles. Subscribers list. Illustrated with 81 hand-coloured acquatint plates, an engraved floor plan of the Abbey and an engraved portrait of the Dean of Westminster. Some offsetting from plates to text (heaviest from portrait plate), some of the text pages quite heavily spotted to the margins, the majority however are clean. All of the plates are present as called for in the plate list, and in very good condition and with tissue guards. Moncrieffe armorial bookplate to the front pastedown of each volume. A handsome set.

The 'Aymer de Valence' plate is in the first state, incorrectly crediting "F. Mackenzie" instead of A. Pugin. "A book that should be highly rated both as an exhaustive pictorial record of the Abbey and for its individual architectural plates, beautifully composed and aquatinted with the addition of discreet colour just sufficient to suggest the cloistered intimacy of sunlight filtered by lofty windows onto fretted stone, wood and metal" (Adams). [Abbey, Scenery 213; Adams 108; Tooley 2].