Lot 152: COOK, Henry (1819-c.1890). Recollections of a Tour in the Ionian Islands, Greece, and Constantinople. [London: Thomas M'Lean, 1853].

Broadsheet 2o (640 x 475mm). Lithographic dedication. 20 (of 30) tinted lithographic plates by and after Cook. (Light offsetting from plates onto text, some spotting, lacking title, leaf bearing pp.13/14 bound in reverse.) Contemporary blue calf gilt, upper cover titled in gilt, borders of triple gilt fillets and foliate rolls, spine gilt, turn-ins roll-tooled in blind, gilt edges (rubbed and scuffed with small losses on spine and lower cover, spine and parts of upper cover faded). A RARE ACCOUNT OF A TOUR UNDERTAKEN WITH THE LORD HIGH COMMISSIONER OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS. Henry Cook, Chevalier of the Order of SS. Maurizio e Lazaro, studied painting at the Royal Academy and in Rome; although he also published volumes of poetry, he states firmly in the 'Advertisement' to his poem Pride (London: 1841) that his 'profession is... that of Painting and not of Writing' (p.vii). He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1840 to 1855, where he showed a work entitled 'Temple of Jupiter Olympus' (presumably the original of one of the two plates of that title in Recollections ) in 1853. Among his other works are The Scenery of Central Italy (London: 1846), which was illustrated with 24 lithographic plates by the author. Cook's Recollections is dedicated to Sir Henry George Ward (1797-1860), as 'the result of the happy tour which I had the pleasure of making with you last year' (dedication leaf). Ward was appointed Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands in 1849, a position that he held until 1855 and -- although marred by an uprising in Cephalonia in the autumn of 1849 -- 'his general administration of the islands was considered able and successful' (DNB, XX, p.773). The work appears to have been published in parts between April 1852 and February 1853, and the title-page was probably issued in the customary way with the final part of the work. The present copy was presumably bound up from the earlier parts. Cook's Recollections is a rare work; only one copy (containing 21 plates) is recorded at auction by ABPC since 1975. Not in Blackmer or Abbey.