The Mansions of England

illustrated with 106 hand-coloured lithographs mounted on card

The first and best edition, with all the hand-coloured plates mounted on card, of 'one of the most important of the lithograph books when coloured' (Tooley).

In order to prepare these hundred or so lithographs of surviving country houses of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, many of them little known, Nash (1809-1878) roamed the country and sketched each one thoroughly on site, spending ten years on the project. He confined himself strictly to reproducing architectural details, exterior and interior, but enlivened them romantically with scenes of Tudor domestic life, feasting, and revels that he researched carefully in the antiquarian works of Joseph Strutt. His goal was to revive interest in these old English buildings by presenting them as the natural setting for some very modern sentiments, combining hearty feasting and drinking with class conciliation, domestic comfort, and virtue.

The Mansions' combination of architectural and antiquarian accuracy with contemporary values was devastatingly effective. Nash's plates were immediately engraved for mass circulation in the Saturday Magazine and widely copied and plagiarised in the popular illustrated press. They served as a sourcebook for architects but also as advertising placards for tourist sites around the country that became more accessible as the railway network developed, and already in 1841 Nash's work was cited before a parliamentary select committee as a factor in the growing popular taste for visiting historic buildings.

Notable houses pictured include Holland House in Kensington, London, the majority of which was destroyed during the Blitz, Hever Castle in Kent, and the grand staircase at Hardwicke Hall in Derbyshire.

First edition; 5 vols; large folio (56.5 x 48 cm); the first 4 vols containing 106 fine hand-coloured lithographs printed by Hullmandel mounted on card as issued on 104 leaves, the fifth vol. the expanded 1869 folio reissue of the text (57 x 39 cm), bookplates to front pastedown, occasional light spotting; 19th-century half red morocco gilt by Sotheran, gilt title in gothic script to upper red cloth covers, gilt spines in 7 compartments, lettered to second and fourth, others with floral arabesque design, all edges gilt, covers slightly rubbed and abraded with occasional loss to leather and to cloth on the upper cover of vol. IV, cloth a little soiled, overall a very good example.

Abbey Scenery 402; Tooley 337.