Views in New-York and its Environs, from Accurate, Characteristic & Picturesque drawings, Taken on the spot, expressly for this work, by Dakin, Architect; with historical, topographical & critical illustrations, by Theodore S. Fay, (Co-Editor of the New York Mirror;) Assisted by several Distinguished Literary Gentlemen
THE RARE COMPLETE SET OF THE PEABODY VIEWS
WITH TWO PLATES PRESENT IN PROOF ON INDIA PAPER
New York: Peabody & Co., London: O. Rich; 1831[–1832–1833–1834]. First edition.
Quarto (10 13/16” x 8 ½”, 274mm x 217mm): binder’s blank, π1 12 2-42 21-22 31-22 χ-7χ2, binder’s blank [$1 signed]. 31 leaves, pp. i-iii (dedication, blank, introduction) iv, 5 6-58 243 244-46. With an engraved title-page, 15 engraved plates (11 with two views) and a hand-colored engraved folding map.
Bound in contemporary half red sheep over marbled boards. On the spine, six panels. Title gilt to the second panel. All edges of the text-block speckled brown.
Some chipping to the extremities. Tissue-guards heavily tanned (as usual), with some tanning and foxing, mostly mild. The third and fourth plate (i.e., pll. 5 & 6 and 7 & 8) proofs printed on India paper, the former mounted and the later tipped in.
Theodore Sedgwick Fay (1807–1898) was born in New York and at 21 was already an editor of the New-York Mirror, for which Edgar Allan Poe would serve as critic, which perhaps not coincidentally promoted the publication quite heavily in its own pages. Fay’s text is florid and charming, clearly influenced by the Romantic poets and the British embrace of the picturesque. James Harrison Dakin (architect of the Gothic main building of NYU, demolished 1894) drew only six of the views, but Deák suggests that he “may have directed the choice of the sites.” The presiding genius of the work seems in fact to have been the publisher, Peabody, hoping to capitalize on the success of the Bourne views, published 1830–1831. Deák finds the Peabody views superior: “the Peabody prints, which are somewhat larger, are more energetically conceived, with a thrust toward a painterly effect.”
Although ten parts of the work had been planned, only eight were issued (the eighth part with disturbed pagination and an additional plate). The publisher’s part-wrappers note that “A very few proofs on India paper have been taken: price Six Shillings.”, which was twice the price of the full part.
Deák, Picturing America 399; Howes F 64; Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan 102.
Item #JLR0668
Price: $8,500