COLOUR PRINTING - James E. DOYLE (1824-83). A Chronicle of England B.C. 55 - A.D. 1485, London, 1864, 4to, 81 coloured illustrations by Edmund Evans after James E. Doyle, attractively bound in contemporary red crushed morocco gilt. FIRST EDITION.

COLOUR PRINTING - James E. DOYLE (1824-83).  A Chronicle of England B.C. 55 - A.D. 1485 ... The Designs Engraved and Printed in Colours by Edmund Evans. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1864. 4to (270 x 205mm). Half title, title printed in red and black, initials, some printed in colours, 81 wood block coloured illustrations by Edmund Evans after James E. Doyle. Attractively bound in contemporary red crushed morocco gilt by Hayday & Co., the spine with 8 raised bands with narrow horizontal strips of green morocco onlays, gilt edges, marbled endpapers (extremities lightly rubbed). Provenance: Richard Sanders (armorial bookplate). FIRST EDITION. "Evans's next work of importance was A Chronicle of England, written and illustrated by James E. Doyle, brother of Dicky Doyle [i.e. Richard Doyle (1824-83)], the well-known Punch artist, and son of 'H. B.' the caricaturist. The artist drew the designs on wood himself, and coloured a proof of each subject as he received it from the printer. For each of the eighty-one illustrations nine or ten colour-blocks were engraved, and the whole work was done on a hand-press, employed on this book for the last time. The work was published in 1864 at two guineas, and the entire edition sold out within a year of its publication. Colour illustrations are almost invariably on separate plates, and it is a striking feature of this book that all the illustrations are in the text. Mr Evans told me that he considered this the most carefully executed book he had ever printed" (Hardie). Hardie English Coloured Books pp.269-70; Muir pp.157-8; Ray England 241.