A PICTURESQUE GUIDE TO BATH, BRISTOL HOT-WELLS, THE RIVER AVON, and the ajdjacent country; illustrated with a set of views, taken in the summer of 1792; by Mess. Ibbetson, Laporte and J. Hassell; and engraved in aquatinta.

4to (240 x 180mm), pp. [iv], 266, [1] list of plates and errata, [1] advertisements; with a frontispiece and 15 other hand-coloured aquatint plates, as called for in Abbey; a little spotting but generally an excellent, clean copy, rebound in modern half polished roan over marbled boards (a little rubbed), spine lettered in gilt; marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. First and only edition of an account of a trip from London to the west country, finely illustrated by three artists, Julius Caesar Ibbetson, John Peter Laporte and John Hassell, and presumably mostly written by Ibbetson himself. Splendidly adorned with 16 plates in coloured aquatint, this is a typical product of the search for 'picturesque' qualities in a natural landscape, as encouraged by William Gilpin and others. All of the aquatints are by Hassell, but the many of the first group are after pictures by Ibbetson; Laporte seems to have contributed just one image (the plate opposite p. 184) to the art on display here. Abbey Scenery 38; Tooley 277. Provenance. Said to have been in the collection of John Arlott (1914-91), cricket writer and commentator, and collector of English illustrated books.…