By Italian Seas
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906. Item #1502 8vo. 230 x 165 mm., [9 x 6 ½ inches]. xiv + 233 pp. with twenty-three unnumbered leaves of plates inserted between pages of text. A total of seventy-four black and white illustrations including one as the frontispiece, twenty-three on the unnumbered leaves referenced above, and the remaining fifty included within the text. Illustrated endpapers with clam and seahorse motifs; front pastedown shows a map of the Italian peninsula. Publisher’s green cloth over boards with gilt lettering on the spine and a gilt decorative element in the center of the front cover onlaid with a printed color illustration on paper; bottom and fore-edges deckled; top edge gilt; dust jacket missing. Book is Very Good: chipped and frayed at the head and foot of the spine and at the corners; moderate soiling and shelf wear; one noticeable dent along the top edge of the front cover; front hinge broken; second free leaf bears the name of a previous owner but otherwise the text block is clean. Overall, in decent condition. First Edition. Ernest C. Peixotto (1869-1940) was an American author and illustrator. In 1888, he left the United States to study painting at the Académie Julian in Paris and ended up staying in France on and off for most of his life, with a few brief intervals spent working in San Francisco and New York City. He wrote and illustrated several travel books throughout his career, mostly focused on Western Europe and the American Southwest. By Italian Seas describes the natural beauty found in various locations along the Italian coast and even in places – such as Malta and present-day Croatia – that were not formally part of Italy. Each essay, some of which were written by Peixotto’s wife Mary Glascock Hutchinson, sketches a different region and is enriched by a series of original illustrations of notable monuments, natural features, and scenes of everyday life.
Price: $120.00