Books and Manuscripts

London: Printed by John Tyler, 1815. First edition. Oblong folio. Title-page, dedication leaf to the Duke of Wellington, three-page list of subscribers, and two-page preface. Illustrated with six hand-colored aquatint plates, engraved by Robert Havell after drawings by Bellasis, printed by W.B. M'Queen; each with tissue guard and accompanying letterpress text. Contemporary three-quarter brown calf over marbled paper-covered boards, green morocco cover label, stamped in gilt, corners and extremities rubbed and worn, spine ends worn, boards rubbed, old small paper label at top of front board; all edges trimmed; green endpapers; by B. Scott, Carlisle; front and rear hinges repaired; front free endpaper starting at upper gutter, old repair on verso gutter of same; title-page soiled and creased; scattered soiling and toning to plates and text. Abbey, Travel 309; Tooley 87

The earliest views of Saint Helena, published in response to Napoleon's exile on that remote mid-Atlantic island.

Saint Helena would be the deposed French Emperor's final home, and marked the conclusion of a dramatic near two-decades-long reign that engulfed Europe in near constant conflict. In March 1815, Napoleon escaped his first exile on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean, and marched on Paris and regained power. The Hundred Days that saw his second rise to power came to a close that summer at the Battle of Waterloo, where Napoleon's army was finally defeated at the hands of the Duke of Wellington (to whom this work is dedicated) and a coalition of European powers. Determined to keep Napoleon from ever rising again, he was exiled to Saint Helena, a rugged and mountainous 10 x 5 mile British territory, located about 1,200 miles west of Africa and 1,800 miles east of South America. He would remain there until his death, six years later, on May 5, 1821.

These illustrations were created by British soldier George Hutchins Bellasis in 1804, during his recuperation on the island after falling ill en route to India. A decade later, in 1815, when news of the location of Napoleon's exile became public he decided to publish six of his drawings in the current work, with the hope that they "at the present period...be the more interesting, when this singularly romantic Island is the appointed residence of one of the most extraordinary men recorded in the annals of History."

In pursuit of that they were beautifully executed in hand-colored aquatint by Robert Havell, who later in 1827 would, along with his son Robert Havell, Jr., begin his most acclaimed work, with John James Audubon in his Birds of America.