Childs, C.G.:

$8,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

VIEWS IN PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS VICINITY; ENGRAVED FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS. A handsome volume containing in whole or in part three of the most important early 19th-century American city view books. The first work is a large-paper copy of Childs' VIEWS IN PHILADELPHIA, a quite early example of American lithography, and one of the nicest series of city views produced in the 19th century. The work itself, originally issued in six parts, each with four plates, features engravings of prominent churches, the state house, the Bank of Pennsylvania, the University of Pennsylvania, the United States Mint, and the Academy of Natural Sciences, among other important buildings. A plan of the Eastern Penitentiary was also included in the fifth part, calling for twenty-five plates in a complete copy, as in the present copy.In his MIRROR OF AMERICA, Martin Snyder describes the order of the plates in bound copies as "erratic." The bound order of the plates in this copy is as follows:1) "Philadelphia from Kensington."2) "View on the Schuylkill. From the Old Water Works."3) "State House or Hall of Independence."4) "Pennsylvania Hospital."5) "Swedish Lutheran Church."6) "Friends Meeting House Merion."7) "Christ Church."8) "Saints Stephens Church."9) "Fair Mount Water Works. From the West Bank of the Schuylkill."10) "Fair Mount Water-works. From the Reservoir."11) "Widows and Orphans Asylum."12) "University."13) "Bank of the United States."14) "Bank of Pennsylvania."15) "Girard's Bank."16) "Sedgeley

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