The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia (Easton Press Deluxe Limited Edition)

Up the Nile to the Second Cataract, across Sinai to Petra, and on to Jerusalem in the spring of 1839: David Roberts’s eleven months in the East, lithographed by Louis Haghe and recreated by the Easton Press in three volumes.

David Roberts (1796–1864) was born at Stockbridge, near Edinburgh, the son of a shoemaker, and came to painting through an apprenticeship to a house decorator and a career as a theatrical scene painter. He sailed for Egypt on 31 August 1838 and spent eleven months in Egypt, Nubia, Sinai, the Holy Land, Syria and Lebanon, reaching Jerusalem at Easter 1839. He returned with 272 sketches, a panorama of Cairo and three full sketchbooks. He travelled up the Nile to the Second Cataract, saw Abu Simbel, and moved through Petra, Jerusalem, Baalbek, Beirut and Damascus. What he recorded was a world already changing, and many of the monuments he drew have since been altered, moved or lost, some of the Nubian sites beneath Lake Nasser. His record has acquired a documentary importance beside its artistic one.

In 1840 the publisher Francis Graham Moon paid Roberts £3,000 for the copyright of the sketches and for his supervision of the lithographs, which were made by the Tournai-born Louis Haghe (1806–1885), one of Britain’s foremost lithographers. The tinted lithographs were issued by subscription in large folio parts between 1842 and 1849, in two works, The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea and Arabia and Egypt and Nubia. More than 2,000 copies were sold in advance, and Queen Victoria was subscriber number one. The Royal Academy had made Roberts a full member in 1841, before the publication was complete.

The first quarto edition, published by Day & Son in 1855–56 in six volumes, brought all 250 plates to a wider audience at a much reduced size. It is this edition, with the historical descriptions by the Revd George Croly, that the Easton Press recreated in 2014, in three volumes limited to 800 numbered copies.

ROBERTS, David. The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia. After Lithographs by Louis Haghe from Drawings Made on the Spot by David Roberts, R.A. With Historical Descriptions by the Revd. George Croly. Facsimile of the first quarto edition (London: Day & Son, 1855–56).

Deluxe limited edition. Limited to 800 numbered copies, this being number 64. Quarto (21.5 × 29cm). Six original volumes bound in three; irregular pagination, with 250 colour lithographic plates numbered continuously. Vol. I: Jerusalem & Galilee. Jordan & Bethlehem, plates 1–87. Vol. II: Idumea & Petra. Egypt & Nubia, plates 88–168. Vol. III: Egypt & Nubia, plates 169–250. All three volumes bound in full royal blue leather, with raised bands to the spines and elaborate gilt decoration and lettering to boards and spines. All edges gilt. Marbled endpapers. Satin ribbon page markers. Some very mild foxing to the flyleaf of Volume I and some spots of rubbing to the cover gilt. Otherwise fine throughout.

Please note: This is a large three-volume set and is very heavy. Additional postage costs will apply. Please contact us for a shipping quote before purchase.

This book is currently not on display in store. If you would like more information or to arrange a viewing, please contact: rarebooks@harryhartog.com.au

Catalogue Number: HH000380