Featured Art and artist of our time by Clarence Cook

Hello, I Bought these today that a thrift store in Wilton manors Florida , as you can see the covers are falling apart from age the books are from the 1800s but the pages and the artwork are in really good condition. it would probably cost a lot of money to fix the binding and somebody said I should just take the prints out frame them and sell them but cutting up a book doesn’t feel right to me .what do you guys think ?

 

Any publication data? Looks like the kind of edition sold by subscription. Do any of the volumes end mid-sentence? (They did that sometimes to encourage purchase of the next volume.)

If they are actual steel plate engravings, I'd strip the books for the prints.

If they are steel plate engravings there will be no text on the back and the front may be protected with tissue. The paper will be considerably heavier than the pages with text.

Illustrations embedded in text are probably wood engravings.

I know lots of people will object to this, but these were the coffee table books of their day - meant to be eye candy with text as an excuse.

The plates for these pictures traveled around. I have a copy of that Childhood print and am aware (with this) of five publications in which it appeared over a thirty year period.

 

The print pages are thicker and there’s tissue covering the top of them and there’s nothing printed on the bags I believe the books are dated 1882

 

It is always helpful to post photos of the title page and copyright page (usually on the reverse of the title page) when asking about books, so we can see the publisher and date of publication. Is there anything that indicates there were originally more than 3 volumes, or is the set complete?

It seems to be significant enough that a 3 volume reprint was issued in 1978 by Garland Publishing (ISBN 978-0824022396), which is now scarce, as is the original 1888 publication. The original seems to have been published as a 6 volume set. But publishers sometimes reissued sets in a different format, combining/reducing the number of volumes. A complete set would have more potential value than individual volumes.

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Se...tn=art+artists+our+times&cm_sp=pan-_-srp-_-fe

I am generally against "breaking" books. From what I can see in your photos, the bindings seem to be structurally sound - the volumes would just need to be re-backed (replacing the exterior spine). You may want to consider the potential value of restored volumes, vs the potential value of the individual engravings. Do you have a market for them? You might consider looking at ebay to see the usual prices brought by 19th century steel engravings, and see if it is worth the effort (and destruction).

 

Interesting. A late Victorian snapshot. Appears to have been published in 1888 as a six-volume set. There are a number of Completed and Active listings on eBay that you can use to evaluate supply & demand and how they're effected by condition.

Debora

 

so I took pictures of the copyright and it says they are steal Plate Engraving , So now I need to decide what I should do and l thank you for the information it was very helpful

 

I Believe that the publisher did the three encyclopedia size sets and then came out with a smaller six volume set

 

No doubt you will be able to find various of the engravings online and may be able to get a sense of their worth.

Here's an example of "Cherries Ripe" from a different source currently listed on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/163926819878

 

Thank you

 

The copy of Childhood that I have is marked Selmar Hess.

Another print that I have that appears in those books (in the link) is "Returning Home", which I like for its obvious allusion to a triumphal procession despite being anything but triumphal:


My copy of that was printed for Appleton's Journal in N.Y., 10 years before these books.