Canadian Scenery. Illustrated in a Series of Views.

London: Virtue & Co., circa 1842. Binding: All edges gilt. No binding. , Notes: Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806 – 1867) was an American author and editor who worked with several other noted American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was highly popular in his life, and became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. Willis embedded his own personality into his writing and addressed his readers personally, specifically in his travel writings, so that his reputation was built in part because of his character. Most contemporaries recognized how prolific he was as a writer and how much time he put into all of his writings. James Parton said of him: “Of all the literary men whom I have ever known, N. P. Willis was the one who took the most pains with his work. It was no very uncommon thing for him to toil over a sentence for an hour; and I knew him one evening to write and rewrite a sentence for two hours before he had got it to his mind.”

William Henry Bartlett (1809 – 1854) was a British artist, recognized as one of the foremost illustrations of topography of his generation. Bartlett’s primary concern was to render “lively impressions of actual sights.” Nathaniel Parker Willis described Bartlett's talent thus: “Bartlett could select his point of view so as to bring prominently into his sketch the castle or the cathedral, which history or antiquity had allowed.”


, Size: 4to. (273x210 mm), Illustration: Very good examples of these substantial works on colonialism and European settlement in Canada, with detailed and lyrical descriptions, as well as a profusion of plates illustrating many views and scenes accompanying the text. Interior and plates are clean and crisp. Including early views of Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Fredericton, Kingston, Halifax, and other cities, as well as many scenes of lakes, rivers, forests, and other natural sights. Vol. 1 complete with 54 plates. Without frontispiece of Bartlett, as per this copy’s index. Vol. 2 complete with 64 plates, including frontispiece. These two volumes have the two Toronto views., Volume: 2 volumes., Category: Book Canada;. Item #B6749

Price: $1,100.00