LES BORDS D'ADRIATIQUE ET LE MONTÉNÉGRO

Paris: Librarie Hachette et Cie, 1878. FIRST EDITION. 344x 256 mm. (13 1/2 x 10"). 4 p.l., 639 pp.
Publisher's tan morocco-grained cloth WITH ANIMATED DESIGN BY AUGUSTE D. SOUZE (stamp-signed on front cover) STAMPED IN GILT AND BLACK, covers with dolphin and wave frame, trident cornerpieces, central panel with heraldic emblems, including Venice's Lion of St. Mark, and banners bearing the names of the covered territories, flaming censer at foot of central panel, publisher's emblem below it, raised bands, matching tan morocco spine elaborately gilt, marbled endpapers, all edge gilt. With 254 wood-engraved illustrations, 75 of these full-page, and seven steel-engraved maps, two of them full-page. With book label of the Publishers' Bookbindings collection of Ellen K. Morris and Edward S. Levin laid in at front. Two-inch crease at bottom of rear joint (but the joint not cracked or otherwise weakened), a touch of rubbing to extremities, occasional faint offsetting from illustrations, other trivial imperfections, but A VERY FINE COPY--clean, fresh, and bright internally, with stately margins, in a shimmering binding showing almost no signs of use.

In its striking--and strikingly well-preserved--publisher's binding, this grandly proportioned and thoroughly illustrated travelogue comes from a major American collection. Our author, French painter and writer Charles Yriarte (1832-98), had begun travelling around Italy and the Balkans as a reporter for the "Monde Illustré" magazine. In 1871, he left the magazine to begin travelling and writing on his own. The present work was composed during this new period, on a journey Yriarte took starting in Venice and along both coasts of the Adriatic Sea, including the inland portions of the eastern Adriatic countries, which he says in the introduction have been little-visited. His descriptions of landscapes, architecture, cultures, and costumes he encountered are accompanied by a wealth of illustrations after a variety of artists, which provide very romantic impressions of the scenery and peoples of the Adriatic coast. The binding is the work of engraver and designer Auguste Souze (fl. 1857-92), who produced many dies for publisher's bindings in France during the third quarter of the 19th century. Our binding is profusely decorated with the iconography of the Adriatic region, and the gilt and black are used very effectively to give depth and richness to the design. This volume comes from the splendid collection of publisher's bindings assembled over three decades by Ellen K. Morris and Edward S. Levin, and exhibited at the Grolier Club in 2000. In a review of the sumptuous catalogue for the exhibition, written for the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Andrea Krupp praises the "pristine condition" of this "glittering and opulent collection.".