With One Hundred Engraved Woodcuts

MACKAY, Charles.  THE HOME AFFECTIONS POURTRAYED BY THE POETS.

London: George Routledge, 1858. 4to. Publisher's full-morocco deluxe binding. xvi, 392 pages, with 100 wood-engravings. First edition.

Gleeson White refers to this book as the most important illustrated book of the year.  It contains one hundred engraved woodcuts by the Dalziel Brothers after Birket Foster, Pickergill, Tenniel, and others.  Most significant engravings are by Millais as they bridge two distinctive genres of illustration.  The first, "There's no Luck about the House," is a charming image in the Mulready school; the second, "The Border Widow," is a dazzling effort in a decidedly pre-Raphelite mood, brimming with emotion.  The book is in the deluxe, publisher's issued binding: full-morocco with finely burnished gauffered edges.  It is in a lined, clamshell box by Anthony David Estill, with his bookplate.  Some sporadic foxing, but a remarkably nice copy none-the-less.

$685.00