PICTURESQUE AMERICA, TWO-VOLUME SET
Picturesque America, a two-volume set of books describing and illustrating the scenery of America, published by D. Appleton and Company of New York between 1872 and 1874 and edited by the romantic poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). First book edition, in deluxe publisher’s full blind-tooled gilt morocco binding, of the most famous and influential early pictorial representation of the United States. Beautifully illustrated with over 900 wood engravings and fifty steel engravings along with essays. The preface describes the book as "A delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, water-falls, shores, canyons, valleys, cities, and other picturesque features of our country. With Illustrations on Steel and Wood, by Eminent American Artists. It is the design of this publication to present full descriptions and elaborate pictorial delineations of the scenery characteristic of all the different parts of our country. The wealth of material for this purpose is almost boundless." This set is in very good condition maintaining the original leather covered boards with some rubbing. Yellowing to edges of pages, as expected due to age, with some foxing. Page 125 does have a large tear. Light water staining to lower right of pages in Vol. 2.
The volumes display both steel and wood engravings based on the paintings of some of the best American landscape painters of the nineteenth century, such as John Frederick Kensett, William Stanley Haseltine, James David Smillie, John William Casilear, Thomas Moran, A. C. Warren, Harry Fenn, David Johnson, Granville Perkins, John Douglas Woodward (1846-1924), Felix Octavius Carr Darley, Albert Fitch Bellows, James McDougal Hart, Casimir Clayton Griswold (1834-1918), Worthington Whittredge, Charles G. Rosenberg (1818 - 1879), William Ludwell Sheppard (1833-1912), Homer Dodge Martin, Alfred Rudolph Waud, William Hart, Robert Swain Gifford, Jules Tavernier, William Hamilton Gibson, Thomas Cole and others.
Engravers included Robert Hinshelwood (1812-Died in New York), Edward Paxman Brandard (1819-1898), Samuel Valentine Hunt (1803-1893), William Wellstood (1819-1900), William Chapin (1802-1888), Henry Bryan Hall (1808-1884).
Volume I engravings
On the Coast of Maine
St. John's and Ocklawaha Rivers
Up and Down the Columbia
Lookout Mountain and the Tennessee
Richmond, Scenic and Historic
Natural Bridge, Virginia
Delaware Water-Gap
Mauch Chunk
On the Savannah
The French Broad
The White Mountains
Neversink Highlands
St. Augustine, Florida
Charleston and its Suburbs
Weyer's Cave, Virginia
Scenes on the Brandywine
Cumberland Gap
Watkins Glen
Scenes on Eastern Long Island
The Lower Mississippi
Mackinac
Our Great National Park
Harper's Ferry
Scenes in Virginia
Newport
West Virginia
Lake Superior
Northern California
Niagara
Trenton Falls
The Yosemite Falls
Providence and Vicinity
South Shore of Lake Erie
On the Coast of California
Volume II engravings
Highlands and Palisades of the Hudson
Philadelphia and its Suburbs
Northern New Jersey
Valley of the Connecticut
Baltimore and Environs
The Catskills
The Juniata
On the Ohio
The Plains and the Sierras
The Susquehanna
Boston
Lake George and Lake Champlain
Mount Mansfield
Valley of the Housatonic
The Upper Mississippi
Valley of the Genesee
St. Lawrence and the Saguenay
Eastern Shore
The Adirondack Region
The Connecticut Shore of the Sound
Lake Memphremagog
The Mohawk, Albany and Troy
The Upper Delaware
Water-Falls at Cayuga Lake
The Rocky Mountains
The Canons of the Colorado
Chicago and Milwaukee
A Glance at the Northwest
The Mammoth Cave
New York and Brooklyn
Washington
PRICE: $2,000
