A fascinating volume describing the contents (several thousand items including rare books, art and antiquities) of an impressive stately home.
Beautifully illustrated frontispiece by Walford dela Motte Dell including some highlights of the collection such as a coat-of-arms, Grecian urns and various treasures. The Latin phrase "Fari quae sentiat" ('to speak what one feels') at the top. This illustration first appeared in an article by Dudley Costello in Ainsworth's magazine (March 1842). Engraved frontispiece portrait of Horace Walpole after Eckhardt.
The title page reads: "Strawberry Hill the renowned seat of Horace Walpole. Mr George Burns is honoured by having been selected by the Earl of Waldegrave, to sell by public competition, the valuable contents of Strawberry Hill, and it may fearlessly be proclaimed as the most distinguished gem that has ever adorned he annals of auctions. It is definitively fixed for Monday the 25th day of April, 1842 and twenty-three following days (Sundays excepted), and within will be found a repast for Lovers of Literature and the Fine Arts, of which bygone days furnish no previous example, and it would be in vain to contemplate for times to come."
The preface opens with a verse from the poem Ballad on Strawberry Hill by the Earl of Bath.
Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717 –1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was a British Whig politician (a party which later became the Labour Party) writer, historian and antiquarian.
Strawberry Hill House (referred to as Strawberry Hill) is a Gothic Revival villa in Twickenham, London, built by Horace Walpole from 1749 onward. It is the prototypical example of the Strawberry Hill Gothic style of architecture, some decades before his Victorian successors of the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival. Walpole's later additions were inspired by his Grand Tour travels. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest.
Published by: George Robins, London in 1842
Condition: Very good. Scattered foxing only a few pages at front and back. Binding tight.
Ex Libris Augustus WP Clifford and Ernest George Gearing (at a later date). Leather corners scuffed. Spine chipped.
Binding: Contemporary half leather and marbled boards
- Jacket Condition: N/A
- Binding Condition: Very good
- Overall Condition: Very good
- Size: 22 x 28cm
