BYRON Lord George Gordon Noel. The Siege of Corinth. A Poem [with] Parisina. A Poem. EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED IN SIGNED ZAEHNSDORF BINDING. John Murray,, 1816.

Price: US$2132.08 + shipping

Description: 8vo., First Edition, EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED with engraved frontispiece and 18 engraved plates; most attractively bound in full red calf, sides with gilt frame border, expertly rebacked to style with old backstrip gilt laid down, gilt top, gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, uncut, a remarkably well-preserved, fresh, crisp copy. With the publisher's 4pp catalogue (dated February 1816) at end. THIS COPY WAS BOUND BY ZAEHNSDORF IN THE LATTER HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY FOR CHICAGO PUBLISHER AND WHOLESALER A.C. McCLURG; the binding is signed on front free endpaper verso. It was possibly compiled on behalf of a dedicated collector, for the plates and portraits are numerous and relevant. The frontispiece ('Leila', engraved by Mote after Corbaux) and 11 plates relate to the first work; the remaining 7 plates to the second. Of particular interest are the fine portraits of John Hobhouse (to whom the work is dedicated) by Hopwood after Wivell, and John Sobieski (engraved by Thomson from a picture in the Louvre). A MOST UNUSUAL, AND EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE COPY IN sympathetically restored period binding. Randolph, p. 55; Wise I, p.106.

Seller: Island Books, Thakeham, West Sussex, United Kingdom