Home / Browse / Decorative Bindings / The Naval Achievements of Great Britain. From the Year 1793 to 1817.
JENKINS, James.
The Naval Achievements of Great Britain. From the Year 1793 to 1817.
Publisher: printed for J. Jenkins, by L. Harrison, [after 1817]
Stock code: 65774
Price: £12,500 Currency Conversion
An extremely handsome copy of this magnificent publication, illustrating the high-water mark of Britain's maritime hegemony, and the apogee of the coloured aquatint. As Roger Quarm, curator of pictures at the National Maritime Museum remarked: "As a record of naval events spanning a period of over twenty years [it] has no precedent. At no time prior to 1817 had a publisher attempted such a complete volume of documentary naval prints. It is the quality of accuracy which makes Jenkins so valuable" (quoted in the introduction to the 1998 facsimile edition). It was disappointingly slow to sell on its first issue in 1817, and Jenkins chose to issue copies as demand necessitated. The text in this copy is preponderantly watermarked in 1812, the plates are undated but have watermarks "H S & S" seemingly dating to the early 1820s. The very earliest issues can be identified by the title-page vignette remaining uncoloured; otherwise, the key consideration for collectors is the quality of the colouring, which is extremely good in the present copy.
Folio (358 × 285 mm). Twentieth-century royal blue crushed morocco by Birdsall, title gilt to spine, raised bands, double gilt ruled panels to the compartments, attractive concentric gilt panels to the boards with large laurel wreath corner-pieces, beaded edge-roll, top edge gilt, others uncut, wide-turn-ins with gilt rolls and laurel wreath corner-pieces, marbled endpapers. With 55 hand-coloured aquatints, 2 uncoloured etchings, plans of the Bombardment of Algiers and of the Battle of Trafalgar, engraved title page with hand-coloured vignette. Very minor shelf-wear, lower corners just a touch bumped, two slight nicks to the top edge of the upper board, some light spotting, largely to the tissue-guards, one or two text leaves with repaired splits, else a very good copy in a later, but entirely appropriate and highly appealing binding.
