Lot 204: BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, editor. 1794-1878. Picturesque America; or The Land We Live In. A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of the Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Forests, Water-Falls, Shores, Canyons, Valleys, Cities and other Picturesque Features of Our

Picturesque America; or The Land We Live In. A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of the Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Forests, Water-Falls, Shores, Canyons, Valleys, Cities and other Picturesque Features of Our Country. New York: Appleton and Company, [1872-74].
48 parts (2 volumes). 4to (337 x 260 mm). 49 steel-engraved plates, including additional title-pages and frontispieces on heavy paper and extensive wood-engraved text illustrations throughout. Original blue pictorial wrappers. Mild overall toning and spotting, wrapper of part 7 torn.
Exhibited: Grolier Club, 'Essential Parts,' 1996, p 32.

FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL PARTS, sold by subscription only. Starting with part 39, the upper wrappers bear advertisements and notices concerning the binding of the numbers; one of these reads, "Subscribers are particularly cautioned against giving up their Numbers to bind to irresponsible persons ... Offers of unusually cheap bindings should be regarded with extreme suspicion, as designing persons sometimes use such pretenses to cover fraudulent intentions." Also of interest, a note in part 24 warns subscribers to not bind volume 1 at present as some steel engravings that pertain to volume 1 contents have not yet been issued and conversely some engravings for volume 2 already made their way into one of the first 24 parts.