LEAR, EDWARD. 1812-1888.
Views in the Seven Ionian Islands. London: Day & Son for the author, 1863.
Folio (497 x 333 mm). Tinted lithographed pictorial title page, 20 hand-colored tinted lithographed plates, each preceded by an explanatory text leaf. Contemporary green pebbled cloth ruled in blind and titled in gilt on upper cover. Green quarter morocco custom box. Repairs to joints, spine ends and corners, free front endpaper with one corner repaired, slight foxing and offsetting. WITH: Autograph Letter Signed ("Edward Lear") tipped to free front endpaper, dated January 29, 1864, to Mr. Crookshank.
Provenance: Joyce Cary, Irish novelist [1888-1957] (bookplate).
FIRST EDITION. Published to coincide with the transfer of the islands from British to Greek rule in 1863. Lear was a poet, artist and musician who had earlier published his Views in Rome and its Environs (1841), and Journal of a Landscape Painter in Greece and Albania (1851), as well as numerous other illustrations in books. A great lover the Mediterranean coast, he eventually retired to San Remo, Italy and lived out his life there. Blackmer 987.