Cabinet Portrait Gallery Reproduced from Original Photographs by W.&D. Downey. VOLUME ONE ONLY

London: Cassell and Company, 1894. Hardcover. Very Good. Hardcover. Volume one only of a five volume series. This volume contains 36 black and white portraits accompanied by a brief, adulatory biographical piece. Subjects are drawn from many spheres of British society and culture, with an emphasis on royalty, the aristocracy, the stage, and the arts. Among those included are the Duke and Duchess of Fife, Sarah Bernhardt, Archbishop of Canterbury, Price of Wales, Frederic Leighton, and Mrs. Humphrey Ward. This is an ex-library volume with the bookplate of the City of York Public Library affixed to the front pastedown. In what was probably an effort to (truncated) discourage readers from taking photographs, the library applied an unobtrusive but visible embossed stamp to the margins of the photos, not affecting the portrait itself. Despite these factors the photographs are still interesting and attractive. Bound in brown cloth with floral borders to front boards and titles in gilt to front and to spines. Some bumping and rubbing, remains of small white stickers at foot of spine, but otherwise in quite good condition. Save for the small embossed stamps, the photographs are in very good condition. 96 pages plus photographs. PHOTO/081017. (Inventory #: 21185)