A PICTURESQUE TOUR OF THE ENGLISH LAKES

With Accounts of Ancient and Modern Manners and Customs, and Elucidations of the History and Antiquities of That Part of the Country,Etc.Etc.

 Illustrated with Forty Eight Coloured Views

First edition: vi, 288 pages, hand-coloured aquatint frontispiece – which has been remargined at the top edge, hand-coloured title page vignette, 47 hand-coloured aquatint plates each with a loose tissue guard, recently bound in full black leather titled gilt on the upper cover and spine, marbled endpapers, inner gilt dentelles, book plate on the front free endpaper, light foxing and browning of the text.

Fielding and Walton spent two years in the Lake District making drawings and collecting information and 'extracts from admired poets' to produce their magnificent A Picturesque Tour of the English Lakes, Containing a Description of the Most Romantic Scenery of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, with Accounts of Ancient and Modern Manners and Customs, and Elucidation of the History and Antiquities of that Part of the Country, etc.

The text and beautiful design and illustrations indicate that this was a book for dedicated tourists wanting to plan informed tours of the area. The book contains forty-eight hand-coloured aquatints made from the original drawings by Fielding and Walton. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-picturesque-tour-of-the-english-lakes

Tooley R.V.) English Books with Coloured Plates, 1790 to 1860, London, Batsford 1954, no. 219, pages 183/4, Issued in monthly parts in wrappers and on completion in boards, 750 at £3 13s. 6d. and 100 on large or elephant paper at £6. 6s.

Abbey (J.R.) Scenery of Great Britain and Ireland in Aquatint and Lithography 1770-1860, Dawson of Pall Mall (reprinted) 1972, no.192, Abbey calls for the text to be watermarked H.& S.1818 but in this copy the early sections are watermarked 1811 and the latter 1819 & 1820 (all without a maker) and the plates J. Whatman/Turkey Mill 1819 & 1820 agree but some plates are watermarked 1818.