“TO THE GENERAL READER HISTORY WOULD BE UNINTERESTING WERE IT NOT FOR ITS BATTLE SCENES”: BATTLES OF AMERICA BY SEA AND LAND, ILLUSTRATED WITH 85 ENGRAVED PLATES

TOMES, Robert. Battles of America by Sea and Land. New York: James S. Virtue, circa 1878. Three volumes. Thick quarto, contemporary three-quarters brown morocco gilt, marbled endpapers and edges. $1250.

Early edition, illustrated with engraved frontispieces, separate engraved title pages, and 79 full-page engraved plates of naval and military scenes, maps and commanders, from original designs by such artists as F.O.C. Darley and Alonzo Chappel, handsomely bound.

This ambitious work covers conflicts from the Colonial and Revolutionary eras, the War of 1812, the Mexican Campaigns and the Civil War. It includes biographies of important naval and military commanders. The steel engravings are after original designs by F.O.C. Darley, Alonzo Chappel, and other artists. First published in book form (from subscribers' parts) in 1861. This edition (Patterson & Neilson in New York also published an 1878 edition) includes Robert Laird Wilson's work on the Civil War as the third volume (later published as The Pictorial History of the Great Civil War, 1881; see Nicholson, 936; Dornbusch III:263). Owner bookstamps.

Plates and text fine, only minor rubbing to handsome morocco-gilt bindings. A beautiful set.