Beschreibung:

Henry Drummond, editor
Histories of the noble British families with biographical notices of the most distinguished individuals in each. London: William Pickering, 1842-1846
FIRST EDITION (volume 1 second state), 2 volumes, folio (560 x 384 mm.), titles printed in red and black, illustrated throughout with hand-coloured coats of arms and decorated family trees in the text, 82 LARGE-FOLIO ENGRAVED PLATES, 40 COLOURED BY HAND (32 plates containing architectural features or artifacts, 49 plates being portraits, and one featuring both, some plates with multiple portraits, adding up to a total of 73, of which 63 are hand coloured), red crushed morocco gilt by Riviere, gilt edges, some minor foxing, binding a bit rubbed
A beautifully bound and imposing genealogical work focusing on the histories of a dozen British families: Ashburnham, Arden, Compton, Cecil, Harley, Bruce, Perceval, Dunbar, Hume, Dundas, Drummond, and Neville.
As Keynes suggests, it is a sumptuous production, “a very elaborate work… undoubtedly printed by C[harles] Whittingham, Chiswick [with] only a small number [issued]”. The eminence of the printer and publisher are evident in the general high quality here, and the illustrations are always bright and occasionally striking. Fashioned after histories of the “Celebri Famiglie Italiane,” published by Count Litta of Milan, the present work dividesthe families into two major groups, those which preceded the Norman conquest, and those which rose to eminence afterward, with only the direct male lines of the family being delineated.
The editor, Henry Drummond (1786-1860), was an English banker, politician, and writer, perhaps best known as one of the twelve founders, or apostles, of the Catholic Apostolic Church (that inaptly named sect, organized in 1835 in England, that included mostly Anglicans seeking a renewed spiritual power, and, in fact, few Catholics, if any at all). The first of the two volumes was published in 1842, and the second four years later; the present copy has the first edition sheets of both (including the original title page of Volume 1), and an 1846 title page for both volumes. Bound in the second volume, there are both states of a chart relating to the Perceval family, the inaccurate one that should have been cancelled, as well as its replacement.
REFERENCES: Keynes, p.52