Title: The Picturesque and Popular History of England. (in the Original Parts Consisting of 6 Parts in 6 Volumes).
Description: London: David Bogue, 1847. 1847. - Octavo, 7-1/2 inches high by 5 inches wide. Softcovers. Six parts, each bound in pictorial tan wraps titled with an illustration of knights gathered around their seated king framed by trees as crowds line the street leading to the castle pictured in the background. Text, consisting of "Advertisement" for the series, is printed on the back cover of each volume. The front cover of the first volume is detached with dark tape stains along the left edge and to the remnants of the spine. The covers are darkened with some creases and chips to the edges and the spines are chipped. The top corner of the last book's rear cover has been repaired with tape. 363, [i] & xx consecutively numbered pages. Each part is illustrated with 2 full-page engraved plates for a total of 12 plates. A bookplate is mounted inside the front cover of the first book. There is dampstaining to the plates which illustrate each volume and some occasional pencil marks and highlights. The parts are laid together in a plain green cloth chemise and housed in a later green cloth slipcase titled in gilt on the spine and identified as "Original Parts".
RARE. Apart from a copy in the Duke University Library bound without the titled front covers we have been unable to locate any other existing copy, either bound or in the original parts.
The sixth part ends with the Anglo-Saxons and the Battle of Hastings.
Printed by T.C. Savill at 4, Chandos Street, for David Bogue.
"There has long been an outcty amongst the graver class of critics, that historical novels are a great evil, inasmuch as they misrepresent admitted facts: yet in spite of this denouncement, they are still written and read, while history itself is comparatively neglected.. Nor is the reason at all difficult to comprehend; the dry, hard, matter-of-fact style which the generality of historical writers consider it necessary to adopt, has, to young and imaginative minds, somewhat of a forbidding appearance.. This evil can only be remedied by bringing the light and popular style in which these works are composed to bear upon history,-- to describe its important truths in a more picturesque and familiar manner,-- to bring out the actors and the scenery more boldly before the eye of the reader,-- to throw more of a poetical spirit into the narrative,-- and to give it all the fascination of fiction, without altering a single recorded truth.." [Quoted from the "Advertisement" printed on the rear cover of each part].
Critics appear to have differed in their opinion of Thomas Miller's stated aim. The Church of England Quarterly Review, Vol. 21 for the year 1847, states that "We may add that the author appears to have selected the safest authorities for his facts, and has thrown over the dryness of history the grace, without the exaggeration, of poetry. This work is liberally embellished--two engravings to the number-- and the whole affair, as regards typography and arrangement, worthy of the originality of the undertaking."
Commenting on the author's "Advertisement", the June 5th, 1847 edition of "The Spectator" proclaims "If this were done sparingly and with original knowledge under the guidance of a severe taste, life and variety might be given to a work, without losing sight of its nature; which is recorded history, not imaginary description of fluent rethoric. Indeed, when they thought the case required it, Sanest, Livy, Arnold, and other historians have fulfilled Mr. Miller's theory as a matter of course. In his own development of it, he seems to us more likely to substitute fanciful additions and a dreamy sort of reverie, consisting half of imagined facts and half of mere opinions, than to rise to the height he rums at.."
An advertisement in the January 1, 1847 "Publishers' circular and booksellers' record" states that the finished work will "form three handsome volumes". Nonetheless, it may well be that these first six parts were all that were published. Fair .
Keywords: HISTORY; ENGLISH; ENGLAND; THOMAS MILLER; EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; RARE; 18TH CENTURY; THE PICTURESQUE AND POPULAR HISTORY OF ENGLAND; ILLUSTRATED; ILLUSTRATIONS; ENGRAVINGS; FULL-PAGE PLATES; HISTORICAL; ANGLO-SAXONS; BATTLE OF HASTINGS; DAVID BOGUE; T.C. SAV
- Book number: 31388
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