MITTON, Geraldine Edith (text). Mortimer MENPES (illust.). The Thames. London, Adam and Charles Black, 1906.
8vo., Original grey-blue cloth with decorative boards printed in green, white and light blue, lettered in gilt with a gilt top edge; 55 colour-plate illustrations, captioned on the tissue guards and 20 colour printed chapter headings, pull-out map of the Thames and [2] pp publishers advertisements; endpapers far less toned than usual, a very good, fresh, copy with gist inscription, dated 1940 to front fly-leaf.
First edition. 3000 copies. This volume is unusual in that this was the first time such illustrations had appeared as chapter headings on the same page as the text matter. A laborious process, in that the paper had to first be coated (as the three colour process was only successful on art paper), the experiment was not repeated. A previous text written by Menpes' daughter, Dorothy, was rejected for being of an 'inadequate quality'.
‘A & C Black’s Twenty Shilling series of colour plate books, published from 1901 onwards, brought the world into the home at a time when travel, especially overseas, was much more difficult than it is today. For the first time books containing large numbers of colour plates – up to 100 per volume – were made available to the public at an affordable price.’ (Inman)
Inman 80.
#2108561