ALBUM OF BALTIMORE & OHIO R.R. SCENERY

(Viewbooks) ALBUM OF BALTIMORE & OHIO R.R. SCENERY. New York: Wittemann Bros., 1881. FIRST EDITION. Oblong 32mo - 3-3/8" x 5". Green cloth covered boards with titles and ornate decoration stamped in black to front cover, and ornate decoration stamped in black to back cover with wear to the head of spine, minute touches of shelf wear and minor abrasions to the back cover for what is a nice copy of the book. [12] leaves. The views are printed on one side of a continuous strip of paper measuring 3" x 54-3/4", folded accordion-style into [12] leaves, with the first leaf mounted on p. [2] of covers. Printed by Louis Glaser, the book contains twenty-one collotypes or albertypes of views along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line at various locations in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, including several views of Harper's Ferry. Adolph and Herman Wittemann founded the Wittemann Bros. Publishing Company in 1879 in Brooklyn, New York. Later called the Albertype Company, the Wittemann brothers were major players in the viewbook publishing industry. The book offered in this listing is typical of the style that the Wittemann Bros. pioneered, i.e., one strip of paper folded accordion-style mounted inside a small cloth-covered binding with title and decorative frame stamped in black or gold. The Wittemann brothers were early adopters of the collotype technique, a dichromate-based photographic process used for large-volume mechanical printing before the introduction of cheaper offset lithography. The collotype process could produce results difficult to distinguish from metal-based photographic prints but the process is rarely used now days, having been replaced by high-resolution, halftone offset printing which was both faster and cheaper. The condition of the book is VERY GOOD +. RARE.…