America Scenery; Or, Land, Lake, And River, Illustrations Of Transatlantic Nature. From Drawings By W. H. Bartlett, Engraved in The First Style Of The Art, By R. Wallis, J. Cousen, Willmore, Brandard, Adlard, Richardson, &c. The Literary Department, By N. P. Willis, Esq. London: George Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane. MDCCCXL [1840], with “London, Richard Clay, Printer, Bread Street Hill” on the copyright page, in two volumes. Both volumes are 3/4 bound, with four raised bands, five gilt-ruled compartments, gilt titles and gilt decorations on the spines, marbled covers and marbled endpapers with the bookplate of William Williamson Willick on the front paste-downs, and “Bound by Webb, Liverpool” stamped on the first blank endpapers. Volume I has a frontis portrait of W. H. Bartlett facing an engraving of the capitol in Washington on the vignette title page, a two-page Preface and two pages of Contents with a List of Engravings, a map of the North Eastern Part Of The United States before the first page of text, there are 140 pages of text, and all the edges are gilt. Volume II has an engraving of the entrance to the Hudson Highlands near Newburgh on the vignette title page and two pages of Contents and a List of Engravings, with 106 pages of text and engravings, and all the edges are gilt. Including the vignette title pages, there are 119 steel engravings altogether, as called for - 66 in Volume I and 53 in Volume II. William Henry Bartlett (1809 - 1854) was a British artist best known for his finely detailed steel engravings of Europe and America, and in 1835 he visited the United States to draw views of upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. His panoramic landscapes featured mountains, waterfalls, and lakes of the many regions, as well as building and city scenes that just captured the eye of the viewer. Many of the engravings have people in them, some enjoying leisure, others laborers or frontiersmen in their natural environs, a few with Native Americans wearing their local dress, and all the engravings convey the spaciousness and grandeur of the new country before industrialization changed the landscape. See Sabin 3784. The books were published uncolored by George Virtue in 30 monthly installments from 1837 to 1839, then bound editions were published from 1840 onward, as here. Bartlett made sepia wash drawings the exact size to be engraved, the engravings were produced by Wallis, Cousin, Willmore and others, and the quality of the engravings was enhanced even more by the text of Nathaniel Willis. The books are 4to. and measure 11 x 8 3/4 in. wide, the bindings are tight, with light rubbing along the edges of the spines, and some wear at the tips. There are light brown spots on the engravings towards the front of each book and some offset in the text from the engravings, but overall, an attractive set of plates depicting early American vistas and landscapes that beckoned the eye; apparently the sets became quite scarce as many were broken up for the beautiful plates inside. #18 #1702