Book Press Home Page

TREATISE ON THE PRINCIPLES OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN

VARLEY, John.  TREATISE ON THE PRINCIPLES OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN, bound with Varley's LIST OF COLOURS, and Varley's A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE.  Three volumes, bound as one.

London: J. Varley, (1815-1817). Oblong folio. (10 1/2 x 15 inches). Contemporary cloth spine, boards, with printed label on front board. (35) pages, including 14 aquatint plates, affixed to 18 leaves. First edition, first issue. [See, Abbey, Life, 187].

A compilation of all the works written and published by John Varley (1778-1842) through 1820.  Issued witha printed cover label substituting for an initial title page.  Landscape Design was to be completed in twelve parts, but only five (all present here) were ever produced.  Our copy has fourteen fine aquatint plates, as does Abbey's, except that several of our images are in an earlier state, without titles or engraver's name.  Perhaps because of this, the images are exceptionally fresh.  Two later plates dated 1821, were engraved by J. Gleadah, and are not included in our set.  Varley's List of Colours (1816), two leaves containing nineteen hand-colored samples of colors; and Varley's A Practical Treatise on Perspective, two four-column leaves of text and one engraved plate (measuring approximately 12 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches and dated 1 December 1815) are bound in.  Both of these titles were noted on the cover label but were later omitted from Landscape Design and issued as separate works.  There are both quite rare:  neither Copac or OCLC cite the List of Colours and OCLC lists only three copies for the work on Perspective, although this book was later republished in America in 1819 by Fielding, Lucas, in Baltimore.  Neither of these titles appear in Abbey.  There seems to be some  confusion over later issues of Landscape Design.  Abbey, whose description most resembles our set of original parts, is dated 1823 but is on 1849 Whatman paper.  Duh?  The publisher is noted as being Sherwood, Gilper and Piper, who is also credited with an 1833 edition, but the 1833 edition is described as having only eighteen pages of text and eight plates (a description consistant with the recent microfiche copy also listed in OCLC).

 

$6,850.00