A General Account of all the Rivers of Note in Great Britain; with their Several Courses, their Peculiar Characters, the Countries through which they flow, and the entire Sea Coast of our Island; concluding with a minute Description of the Thames, and its auxiliary Streams.

FIRST EDITION, folding aquatinted frontispiece and 17 engraved maps; the odd spot but otherwise very good, pp.xx(for xviii)+412, 8vo, contemporary polished tree calf, gilt spine with black label, ownership inscription of William Sharrad of Langham, dated 1837, very good. An attractive copy of Skrine's riverine classic. Henry Skrine (1755–1803) was the eldest son of a landowner: 'his inherited wealth enabled him to spend his time chiefly in travelling as a 'rational' entertainment, and recording his descriptions of both urban and rural Britain [.] Writing for a general audience rather than the specialist topographer or antiquarian, Skrine proved a shrewd observer, providing a well-written commentary on the state of the country through which he journeyed. His treatise on rivers was his final published work, and includes a particularly fine folding frontispiece of Thamesis with his trident. (Lowndes p.2411: Cox III/p.341: see also Cohen 'The Thames 1580-1980' p.178).