LAVISHLY ILLUSTRATED WITH 168 FINE ENGRAVINGS

KNIGHT, Charles. The Gallery of Portraits: With Memoirs. London: Charles Knight, 1833-1837. Seven volumes. Quarto, contemporary three-quarter green morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, marbled boards and endpapers. $1800.

Beautifully illustrated first edition of this collection of biographies, with 168 full-page steel-engraved portraits and numerous woodcut head- and tailpieces.

Edited by Charles Knight, an important 19th-century publisher and author best known for his editions of Shakespeare's works, this collection includes biographies of "statesmen and lawyers, soldiers, navigators, divines, men of letters, arts and sciences, and fine arts." Subjects include Rembrandt, Galileo, Chaucer, Handel, Erasmus, Luther, Richelieu Peter the Great, Dante and many others. The biographical texts have been attributed to Arthur Thomas Malkin; each biography is accompanied by a beautifully engraved portrait after an original painting. Bookplates. Volume I with inked owner inscription.

Minor spotting and embrowning to plates; light to moderate rubbing to bindings. A very good set, attractively bound.