The Volumes:
Rees's Cyclopædia, in full The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, was an important 19th-century British encyclopaedia edited by Rev. Abraham Rees (1743–1825), a Presbyterian minister and scholar who had edited previous editions of Chambers's Cyclopædia.
Sydenham Edwards illustrated the Natural History section, the majority comprising animals, both vertebrates and invertebrates, and engraved by Milton and Scott.
Rees's Cyclopaedia is said to have outclassed the Encyclopaedia Britannica of that time and 'remains a monument to the memory of another native of Wales, namely, dr. Abraham Rees, the Encyclopaedist, who was a native of Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire. The plates are far beyond any work of the kind in England of the period in costliness and in skill. They are all engraved upon steel in the best style of the time' (Thomas 1910)
The Author:
Abraham Rees (1743 – 9 June 1825) was a Welsh nonconformist minister, and compiler of Rees's Cyclopædia. He began his career as Tutor in Mathematics at an academy in London. Following the academy's move to Hoxton in 1762, Rees became Resident Tutor, a position he held until 1785. From 1786 to 1796 he was Tutor in Hebrew and Mathematics at New College, Hackney, established by rational dissenters in London. Rees was also a Presbyterian minister and preached regularly from 1768. He published four volumes of his sermons between 1812 and 1821. Rees's interest in mathematics and science led him to re-edit Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia, originally published in 1728, for publisher, Longmans. and editor of the 39 million word 45 volume Rees's Cyclopædia which appeared in installments over an 18 years period, from 1802 to 1820.
The Artist:
Sydenham Teast (or Teak) Edwards (5 August 1768 – 8 February 1819) was a natural history illustrator. Edwards produced superb plates at a prodigious rate: between 1787 and 1815 he produced over 1,700 watercolors for Curtis's Botanical Magazine alone. He illustrated Cynographia Britannica (1800) (an encyclopaedic compendium of dog breeds in Britain), New Botanic Garden (1805-7), New Flora Britannica (1812), and The Botanical Register (1815-19). He also provided drawings for encyclopedias such as Pantologia and Rees's Cyclopædia. He completed a number of parrot illustrations between 1810 and 1812 which were acquired by Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby. Edwards was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1804.
The Prints & Technique:
Line-engraving or Copperplate engraving is a highly exacting & labor-intensive process for intaglio printmaking.
The original drawing is cut into the surface of a copper plate with a hand-held sharp steel point or burin, with shading created by many fine cut lines, or hatching. Before printing takes place, the plate is heated, covered with ink. The warm ink seeps into the finest of depressions and fills the lines and textures of the drawing. The rest of the plate is cleaned off. The copper plate is now pressed with a printing press on to moistened paper which soaks up the ink from the depressions in the plate. The copperplate-engraving technique is very exacting, time-consuming and exhausting for the engraver, who needs a lot of strength for it.
Every part of these prints was made by hand: Hand painted from original plant specimens, drawn & engraved in polished Copper plates which were hand-mined, smelted & rolled, printed onto handmade cotton rag paper, hand cranked through an elaborate handmade etching press, inked & colored with hand-ground pigments individually by hand, & they were usually hand sewn into handmade leather-bound books.
Condition:
Appears to be in good condition for a centuries-old engraving. The paper is in very good shape, some age-toning to the edges, typical minor artifacts from its life as a bookplate. A very clean example as these go, imo.
These prints are very old & may have imperfections expected with age, such as age-toning of the paper, spots, text-offsetting, artifacts from having been bound into a book, etc. Please examine the photos & details carefully.
Text Page(s):
This one comes without its original page of text. The scan of a title-page from one of the volumes is included for reference, it's not part of the listing.
Size:
8-1/4 x 10-1/2" inches approximately.
Combined Shipping:
Yes! Multiple prints combine into one package. Ebay's shopping cart should auto-combine shipping if you put all your selections in your cart & chack-out at once. If you purchase multiple prints & are assessed more than one shipping, or if the cart check-out doesn't auto-combine, I'll endeavor to refund any overage asap.
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Please note: The information I've included in this listing is based on my best research as an enthusiast of these works, not a professional historian of antiquarian books & prints. I like to research & offer some background information about these works which is readily available to me, but I make no claims of total accuracy. Any corrections or further information you might offer would certainly appreciated! The scans in the images are my best efforts to accurately show the item. Antique prints & old paper are notoriously tricky to scan accurately. In my experience, scanners tend to be thrown off by the off-whites & gradations in age-toned paper. If the scanner produces a scan that's too dark or the colors are off, etc, I'll often try to reasonably color-correct to represent the print more as accurately as I'm reasonably able, although I'm not a professional in color-correcting images. I also find that different monitors show colors differently, & eBay's system can sometimes throw off the colors a bit in the uploaded jpeg images as they appear on their site. Thank you!