Description

8vo., First Edition, with frontispiece (original tissue guard present) and 26 fine photographic plates, endpapers lightly browned; original pictorial cloth blocked in gilt, gilt back, gilt top, corners bruised, case a little shaken else a bright, clean copy. A PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE AUTHOR WITH HIS FADED (BUT ENTIRELY LEGIBLE) SIGNED HOLOGRAPH INSCRIPTION ON FRONT FREE ENDPAPER. Uncommon standard reference. Designed and built by the Adam brothers in the late eighteenth century, London's elegant Adelphi quarter was popular with major literary figures including Johnson, Dickens, Voltaire and many others. A representative section remains near Charing Cross station, but the majority was demolished in the 1930s to make way for the broadening of the Thames Embankment. A second edition was issued by Unwin in the following year.