A Picturesque Guide to Bath, Bristol Hot-Wells, The River Avon, and the Adjacent Country; Taken in the Summer of 1792.

Additional information

Both a travel document & a cultural artifact! 16 superb hand-coloured aquatints, VG 1793 1st ed. In contemporary straight grain red morocco, decorative gilt edge tooling, corners & edges rubbed. Expertly re-backed to style, raised bands gilt tooling & titles, gilt tooling to board edges & turn-ins. Internally, half title, tissue frontis, [4], [1], 2-266 pp, [1] pl errata, [1] adverts, 16 pls (complete, hand coloured aquatints), t.e.g., remainder uncut, text block watermarked TW, plates dated 1793, old tape repair to the very top of T1 & 2 (p133,135), evidence of bookplate removal to fpd. An excellent copy in a very attractive binding. (146*225 mm). (Abbey, Scenery, 38. Prideaux, p399. Martin-Hardie p140). Among the plates are the five Welsh interest; View of the Entrance of the River Wye from a Fisherman's Cottage below the New Passage-House on the Severn, View of the Bridge and Entrance to the Town of Usk, Inside View of Tintern Abbey, View of Chepstow Castle and View of Cook's Folly and the River Avon and Severn from Durdham Down. John Hasell has been mentioned as the author of drawing-books, but he also produced several glorified guide-books, illustrated with colour aquatints. In 1793 his Picturesque Guide to Bath takes us all the way to the west country, starting from London by 'that beautiful and elegant outlet, Piccadilly.' The book contains sixteen hand coloured aquatints of much merit, all engraved by Hassell, fourteen from his own drawings, with one after J Laporte and one after JC Ibbetson (Martin-Hardie).