10028.g.5

Imprint: London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler, Paternoster Row. 1875.

Quarto, brown cloth binding, with decorative work and title in gilt and black on upper board and decoration in blind on lower board, measuring 285 x 220 mm; edges gilt; unpaginated. The volume contains 28 woodburytype prints, mounted one to a page on light card, within printed borders, with letterpress captions identifying the subject by continent at the head of the page and by specific title below the image. Each illustration has a blank overlay leaf and is accompanied by 1-2 pp. of descriptive letterpress, supplied by the following contributors: Francis Clement Naish, Alfred Russell Wallace, Walter Woodbury, John Traill Taylor, Francis Young, G. Shrewsbury, John Latouche, Henry Baden Pritchard, Stephen Thompson, John Thomson. A few of the photographs, such as those by John Thomson, can be dated fairly closely from his known movements, but the majority were taken at various times between 1860 and the publication date of 1875.The purpose of the work is explained in Woodbury's short introduction: 'The object of this, the first gift-book of its character, is to place before the public a selection of some of the most celebrated of the world's beauties and wonders, which all being pictures of the unerring sun's work are necessarily true to the places they represent, without any flattery. The Editor's aim has been to make the selection pleasing from its very variety, and to represent the most interesting places to be found in the principal countries of the world. The photographs are all taken by gentlemen whose names stand high in the photographic profession; and the proofs being printed in imperishable pigments by the Woodbury Process are guaranteed from fading or ever losing their brilliancy. The endless choice of earth's beautiful scenery will enable us, should the present volume receive the esteem of the public, to present yearly a collection of the camera's choicest renderings.'