Home / Browse / Illustrated / Greece, Pictorial, Descriptive, and Historical.
WORDSWORTH, Christopher.
Greece, Pictorial, Descriptive, and Historical.
With upwards of Three Hundred and Fifty Engravings on Wood and Twenty-Eight on Steel, illustrative if the Scenery, Architecture, and Costume of that Country, by Copley Fielding, F. Creswick, D. Cox, Jun., Harvey, Paul Huet, Meissonier, Sargent, Daubigny, Jaques, and other Artists.
Second Edition. Nephew of the poet, Wordsworth was educated at Harrow and Trinity, Cambridge where he excelled in classics: in 1830 "he won the first chancellor's medal for classical studies and was immediately elected a fellow of Trinity and subsequently an assistant college tutor" (ODNB). He travelled extensively in Italy and Greece "and made his mark in the field of inscriptions and exploration: in 1832 he went to Paestum and to Pompeii, where he was the first to decipher the graffiti... During a prolonged visit to Greece and the Ionian Islands he made a conjecture as to the site of Dodona which was later corroborated. He was the first Englishman to be presented to King Otho. Passing over the heights of Mount Parnes in deep snow, he and his party were attacked by brigands; Wordsworth was injured in the shoulder by a stiletto, but managed to escape capture. Two books of a pictorial and descriptive kind... followed his return." Later Bishop of Lincoln and a noted Anglican theologian.
Quarto. (270 × 180mm). Handsome contemporary full green morocco binding, gilt panel of double fillets to the boards enclosing elaborate foliate corner-pieces around a central cartouche formed of a repeated arabesque tool, spine gilt in compartments, a.e.g., ticket of the Folthorp, The Royal Bindery, Brighton to the front pastedown. Vignette half-title, 25 steel-engraved plates, 2 maps, numerous wood-engraved vignettes and illustrations to the text. Some foxing, quite heavy to the frontispiece and prelims., lightish elsewhere, overall very good with a little light shelf-wear.
