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Wordsworth, Christopher.
Greece: Pictorial, Descriptive, and Historical.
Publisher: Published by Wm. S. Orr & Co. Amen Corner, London;
Date of Publication: 1844
Stock Code: 15205
Second edition, after the first of 1839-40. Quarto, pp., xxiv, 352, 2 initial and 1 terminal blanks. With engraved title-page, frontispiece, 2 steel-engraved maps, 24 steel-engraved full-page views, and 350 wood-engravings within text, as called for. Full morocco; spine on five raised bands; titled in gilt to spine, other spine compartments elaborately gilt; frame of gilt rolls and double fillets to boards; gilt dentelles; simple gilt rolls to edges of boards; citron end-papers; blue silk place-marker mounted to binding. Small, neat ownership inscription in blue ink to front free end-paper. Joints rubbed, with upper joint cracked to head but holding well; shelf-wear to edges of boards and to spine-tips; a few light scuffs to boards. Occasional spots of toning to plates, text-block square. A very sound, handsomely bound copy. Christopher Wordsworth (1807-85) was the nephew of William Wordsworth. At Cambridge Wordsworth won the first chancellor's medal for classical studies, he was the first to translate the graffiti at Pompeii into English, and travelled throughout Greece and Italy in search of inscriptions. ‘During a prolonged visit to Greece and the Ionian Islands he made a conjecture as to the site of Dodona which was later corroborated. He was the first Englishman to be presented to King Otho. Passing over the heights of Mount Parnes in deep snow, he and his party were attacked by brigands; Wordsworth was injured in the shoulder by a stiletto, but managed to escape capture. Two books of a pictorial and descriptive kind on Greece (1839) and Athens and Attica (1836) followed his return’ (ODNB). £125.00