The first quarto edition of Roberts' The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, & Nubia, one of the most important and elaborate ventures of nineteenth century publishing. This edition includes a complete set of all the titles and plates from the folio edition, but reduced in size and retaining the same atmosphere as the originals.

Funded by subscribers including Queen Victoria the work contains some of the finest prints of the area that have ever been produced and the most atmospheric. As an artist Roberts' genius lay in his considerable sense of architectural effect, and in his understanding of how to subordinate detail without losing richness, talents of which he made superlative use in his original drawings for these plates, which were expertly transferred to stone by Louis Hague, the Royal lithographer. The monumental folio edition of the same title is generally considered to be the most ambitious work ever published in England with lithographed plates.




Six vols bound in 3; 4to (29.5 x 21 cm); 250 lithographed plates including pictorial titles, tissues, all plates captioned, foxing to titles and some light spotting throughout, text block detached from spine in vol. II, a.e.g.; contemporary publisher's blue cloth, richly gilt borders and arms of the city of Jerusalem to centre of boards, spines gilt in compartments, a little faded and worn.

Abbey (Travel), 388.