SIMPSON, William (1823-1899)
The Seat of War in the East
London: Paul & Dominic Colnaghi, 1855-1856. 2 volumes. Folio. (21 5/8 x 14 1/2 inches). First edition, second issue, with the key plates tipped in to volume one, but without 12 pages of text, as the J. R. Abbey copy. Volume I with lithographed dedication leaf, plate list on verso, volume II with the list of plates, verso blank, 14 pp. text. 79 fine large hand coloured lithograph plates and 2 hand coloured vignette title pages heightened with gum Arabic. Plates by E. Walker, J. Needham and others after Simpson, each plate with a tissue guard. The plates number 81 when the vignettes to the titles are counted. Some foxing to the titles and dedication. Contemporary half red morocco and cloth boards, spines with raised bands forming seven compartments, tooled and lettered gilt. [With:] BRACKENBURY, George (1827-1895). Descriptive Sketches, Illustrating Mr. William Simpson's Drawings of the Seat of War in the East First Series. London: Paul & Dominic Colnaghi, 1855. Quarto (11 1/8 x 8 5/8 inches). x, 112 pp.
Bound to style in half red morocco and red cloth, spine with raised bands forming six compartments, lined and lettered gilt
The rare deluxe hand-coloured issue of Simpson’s great pictorial record of the Crimean War, here with Brackenbury’s separately published companion text for the first series.
William Simpson, artist and war correspondent, was born in Glasgow in 1823. After training in lithography in Glasgow and working for Day & Son in London, Simpson was chosen by Colnaghi to travel to the Crimea and make drawings on the spot for a large illustrated work on the campaign. Simpson arrived at Balaclava in November 1854 and remained with the British army until after the fall of Sebastopol. His work earned him the name "Crimean Simpson," and The Seat of War in the East remains one of the most successful examples of lithographic pictorial reporting from the nineteenth century. The work was published in two forms: a cheaper issue with uncoloured tinted plates, and the deluxe issue with hand-coloured plates, as here. The latter gives full force to Simpson's visual record: the bright military uniforms, winter encampments, artillery positions, hospital interiors, ruined buildings, sea approaches, and Crimean landscape are all rendered with a degree of colour and immediacy absent from the uncoloured copies. Abbey described the plates as "an impressive piece of work, not only artistically and technically, but also as pictorial reporting." The accompanying Brackenbury volume is a valuable and less often encountered complement to the folio plate books. The folio Seat of War in the East was published as a pictorial work, originally in parts, with lists of plates, keys, and brief text rather than a sustained narrative. Brackenbury's Descriptive Sketches supplied a prose commentary for the first series, explaining the military settings, events, and circumstances behind Simpson's drawings. Following the success of this work, Simpson travelled widely as an artist-reporter, visiting Circassia, India, Tibet, the Himalayas, Russia, Jerusalem, Abyssinia, Suez, China, San Francisco, Yosemite, Utah, Niagara, Kentucky, Mycenae, Troy, Ephesus, and Afghanistan. He settled in Willesden in 1885 and spent the remainder of his life in literary work.
Abbey Travel 237; Lipperheide Qc 27; cf. M. Archer Visions of India: The sketchbooks of William Simpson (1986); Atabey 146 (reduced version). Not in Tooley or Blackmer.
Item #43033
Price: $12,500.00