Facts About Port and Madeira, with notices of the wines vintages around Lisbon, and the wines of Tenerife

[Otley, West Yorkshire: Peter Willis; Smith Settle], 1990. Thick octavo (24.7 x 15.5 cm.), 261, [14] pages. On thick stock. Illustrated. Advertisements. Top edge gilt. Facsimile of the first edition, DELUXE ISSUE, numbered "XXXIX" of 60 copies. An additional 510 standard copies were issued. The original was published by Vizetelly in 1880. Vizetelly, an Italian-born British publisher and journalist, spent enough years in Paris as correspondent to the Illustrated London News to turn him into a bon-vivant and connoisseur of French Literature. He had an abiding interest in wine, and wrote a number of other books on the subject, including, The Wines of the World Characterized & Classed (1875), Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines (1879). In 1882 his most famous work, A History of Champagne: with notes on the other sparkling wines of France, was issued by Sotheran. He served as wine juror for Great Britain at the Vienna and Paris Exhibitions of 1873 and 1878. Vizetelly published translations of Zola, which landed him in trouble with the Victorian mores of the times. The censorship case against him is well-portrayed in Edward deGrazia'a monumental study of censorship and genius, Girls Lean Back Everywhere. Clean and sound internally. Printed on thick stock, with marbled endpapers. In full dark red calf, gilt-decorated and -titled. Slightest rubbing to the edges, otherwise fine.