Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan

New York: Bartlett and Welford, 1844. First edition, one of three-hundred copies. Folio (21 x 14 1/4 inches; 533 x 361 mm.) [2], 24 pp. With the chromolithographed title by Owen Jones, lithographed map, twenty-six lithographs on twenty-five plates, and original paper guards.

Contemporary half red morocco over red cloth, professionally rebacked retaining original spine. Spine with raised bands lettered and tooled in gilt. Marbled endpapers (nonpareil patten), all edges gilt. New tissue guards inserted alongside original paper guards. Several of the originals with Japanese paper repair. Some foxing throughout (though much less than usually seen), especially to margins. Dark stains to front and back boards. Fore-edge marginal restoration to title-page and plates 20, 22, and 24. Overall a very good copy housed in a grey cloth clamshell case with gilt lettering piece on spine.

Catherwood's Views of Ancient Monuments is very rare at market, and often considerably more foxed than this copy. The work comprises Catherwood's selection of the best and most interesting views of ancient Mesoamerican ruins, transferred to stone by some of the foremost lithographers of their day. The work was published in both New York (by Bartlett and Welford) and London, and originally priced at 5 pounds for an uncolored edition as this.

English architest and artist Frederick Catherwood (1799-1854) accompanied American explorer John Lloyd Stephens (1805-1852) on two journeys totalling more than 3,000 miles to forty-four archaeological sites in Honduras, Guatemala, and the Yucatan between 1839 and 1841. Stephens himself published two very succesful accounts of the travels in 1841 and 1843 (both two volumes, octavo, with plates after Catherwood).

Hill p. 47. Palau 50290. Sabin 11520. Tooley 133 (London).

HBS 67005.

$55,000.