A Series of Views Illustrative of the Island of St Helena.
Year: 1821
Edition: First edition
Publisher: London; Clay, & Jennings
Category: Africa
Published for the Propieter; by T. Clay, Ludgate Hill, Robt Jennings, Poultry & Ino Major, Skinner Street.
Plain red buckram, 4to., with "St Helena" in gilt on the spine. An engraved title page, mounted, and eight uncoloured aquatint plates which have been mounted as well.
Lacking the eight pages of text and the folding plate of St. Helena. The title page a bit soiled and some minor foxing. At the top of the title page there is an inscription in an old hand reading:
John Witherston Rickards
left by his Aunt Rickards
Augt 14th / 47
James Wathen was an ardent traveller and artist, who travelled Europe and the far east for many decades. In the summer of 1812 he paid a short visit to St. Helena. The plates in this book are the result of that visit, though it may be taken for granted that plate no. 1 on the title page is of a later date.
The plates present are:
no. 1 Burial Place of Napoleon Buonaparte (on the title page)
no. 3 Sugar-Loaf Hill
no. 4 Ladder Hill
no. 5 Fort on High Knoll
no. 6 View from High Knoll
no. 7 Longwood House
no. 8 Plantation House
no. 9 Rocks called Lot and his Daughters
no. 10 Barracks above Ladder Hill
An uncoloured proof copy on India paper. Apparently only very few of these copies were printed to be sold. The price, according to Abbey, was set at £1. 11s. 6d.
No auction records in ABPC since 1975 for an uncoloured proof copy.
Abbey Travel 314, Prideaux pp. 237 & 355..
Click on a picture to enlarge.
