Bourne, John C. & John BRITTON

Drawings of the London and Birmingham Railway, by John C. Bourne, with an Historical and Descriptive Account, by John Britton F.S.A

Tinted lithograph title page large central view surrounded by vignettes, 2 maps of the London - Birmingham Line on one sheet, 34 tinted lithographs on 29 sheets by J.C. Bourne; 26 pp. Folio, London: Ackermann and Co. Strand and C. Tilt Fleet Street, 1839. First edition. Publisher's half-morocco and plum cloth, with central gilt-stamped title and border with arms of London and Birmingham on front cover, some fading and light shelfwear to cloth, recased with new endpapers, bookplates of F.J. Haut and Jean Jacques Leblache, very clean internally.

"A magnificent example of the finest type of lithographed illustration" (Abbey). The first edition of this magnificent work, illustrating the construction of the first railway route from London to the North, with particular emphasis on the immense labor and engineering acuity involved in performing cuttings and earthwork — a task comparable to the construction of the Great Pyramid. "A priceless record of the methods used in constructing a great trunk line in the 1830's" (Klingender, "Art and the Industrial Revolution," pp. 124-26). A beautiful copy in the publisher's binding Abbey ("Life") 398; Goldsmiths' 31034; Ray 85.

Item #240720       Price: $9,000.00