10076.g.1

Imprint: London: Day & Son, Limited. Lithographers and Publishers. 6, Gate Street, Lincoln's-Inn Fields, W.C., and The German Gallery, 168, New Bond Street, W. [1867].

Quarto volume, bound in the original blue cloth (rebacked and repaired), measuring 253 x 187 mm, with decorative work in gilt on upper board, repeated in blind on lower board; edges gilt; ix, 99 pp. The work contains 48 small topographical, architectural and archaeological views, mounted one to a page (recto only), with title lithographed in cursive script beneath each image (on right) and photographer's credit (on left), reading, 'Photographed by Francis Bedford during the tour in the east on which by command he accompanied His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.' Each photograph is accompanied by descriptive letterpress text and the majority of the images are titled, signed and dated in the negative. The book forms a popular, more modestly priced edition of the three portfolios (totalling 172 large prints) of photographs from the 1862 royal tour that had been issued by Day and Son in 1863. This earlier work sold for the enormous price of 43 guineas and would clearly have been beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest (see note below). The photographs in the smaller edition are clearly copy prints, presumably selected from the large format series. The British Library copy of the earlier edition, listing as comprising four volumes, was destroyed during World War II. The copy in the National Art Library (Victoria and Albert Museum) also lists four parts. Helmut Gernsheim, 'Incunabula of British Photographic Literature 1839-1875' (Scolar Press, London and Berkeley, 1984), item 187, lists only the three portfolios. It is possible that the fourth was a volume of text accompanying the photographs.Thompson's introduction to the work explains that 'the result of Mr. Bedford's labours was presented to the public in the form of a hundred and seventy-two large and beautifully-executed photographic pictures, which were exhibited and subsequently published. The size, and consequent costliness, of this work placing it, in its entire form, and even in smaller selections from it, beyond the reach of a large number of persons who would otherwise have been glad to possess it, and a wish for a more convenient and inexpensive issue of the views having frequently been expressed, the present volume has been prepared, in which all the more important subjects are given, reproduced on a smaller scale by Mr. Bedford, and accompanied by brief explanatory text' (pp.5-6).