HARRISON, publisher. ~ Picturesque Views of the Principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry in England and Wales. By the most eminent British Artists. With a Description of each Seat. London: Harrison & Co. No 18, Paternoster Row, [1786-1788].
Oblong 4to (215 × 270 mm), engraved title, 100 engraved plates and [100] leaves of letterpress. Most plates with original loose tissue guards intact. Occasional light browning (often from tissue), marginal stains, thumbing and minimal fraying, index leaf with small hole affecting a couple of letters. Contemporary half calf, spine with 5 raised bands, red morocco label. Sides rubbed, edges and corners worn, loss of head and tailbands, but still a good, secure and presentable copy.
First edition of this serially issued country house book with fine engraved plates by Birrell, Walker, Ellis, Fittler, Heath, among others, after E.F. Burney, Corbould, Dayes, Robert Nixon and others. The engraved title includes a fine vignette of Harrison’s book and print shop in Paternoster Row. It was issued monthly, with four plates per issue at 3 shillings, and printed on ‘real Superfine French Colombier Paper’ (advert in London Gazette, 10-14 October, 1786).
The houses illustrated and described range from the most opulent (including Blenheim palace) to more humble gentry houses. Included are Garrick’s Hampton House, Piozzi’s Thrale Place, William Pitt’s Holwood House, Lady Diana Beauclerk’s Twickenham Meadows, Charles Dashwood’s West Wycombe Park and Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill. The engravings are valuable records of both architectural, landscape and garden details and were widely imitated, not least on contemporary ceramics, while the descriptions contain useful details of architects, garden designs, landscape features such as rivers and lakes, and fine art collections — they are not always entirely complimentary. Upcott p. xxxiv. For Harrison’s bookshop see Raven, ‘Location, Size and Succession: The Book shops of Paternoster Row before 1800’ in The London Book Trade, eds. Myers, Robin; Harris, Michael & Mandelbrote, Giles (London, 2003), pp 89-126.