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Old England: A Pictorial Museum of Regal, Ecclesiastical, Baronial, Municipal and Popular Antiquities, Charles Knight (1791 – 1873) London, Charles Knight and Co., Ludgate Street, First Edition, 1845, two volumes, folio, pp. viii, 392; vi, 386, 24 chromoxylographs (incl. frontis.). Many wood-engraved text illustrations.
My copy has contemporary (worn) half-calf with gilt backs; there is some light foxing and dampstaining to the plates and margins of some leaves. Ref. Abbey, Life, 43; purchased D. & E Lake Toronto, 1992.
This book has been reprinted, but the reprint is out of print; you can search for a used copy on Amazon.
I have typed in the index to the book so that you can ask me for other scans if you like.
I have the first few sections online as Old England: A Pictorial Museum if you want to read the actual book!
The book starts with Druidical and Prehistoric remains and continues on to have Castles, Manors and stately homes, Churches, Abbeys and Cathedrals and much more.
Charles Knight also produced an illustrated edition of the Works of Shakspere, as he spelt it.
There is an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Charles Knight.
Some of the engravings were done by the Dalziel brothers; I have some images from their autobiography, A Record of Work.
Contents
Volume I
Book I. Before the Conquest.
Chapter I. The British Period. [Fig. 1]
Chapter II. The Roman Period. [Fig. 80]
Chapter III. The Anglo-Saxon Period. [Fig. 189]
Book II. The Period From the Norman Conquest to the Death of King John. A.D. 1066—1216.
Chapter I. Regal and Baronial Antiquities. [Fig. 334]
Chapter II. Ecclesiastical Antiquities. [Fig. 491]
Chapter III. Popular Antiquities. [Fig. 795]
Book III. The Period From the Accession of Henry III. to the End of the Reign of Richard II. A.D. 1216—1399.
Chapter I. Regal and Baronial Antiquities. Fig. 814]
Chapter II. Ecclesiastical Antiquities. [Fig. 929]
Chapter III. Popular Antiquities.
Book IV. The Period From the Accession of Henry IV. to the End of the Reign of Richard III. A.D. 1399—1485.
Chapter I. Regal and Baronial Antiquities. [Fig. 1150]
Chapter II. Ecclesiastical Antiquities. [Fig. 1279]
Chapter III. Popular Antiquities. [Fig. 1335]
Although some of the images here are from Volume II, I plan to move them into their own darling little folder, and will make a second table of contents.
This book is online at archive.org (Vol I and Vol II), although the OCR has done a really bad job, and the scans are lower resolution and not cleaned up. But you could use it to request a specific image, and I will scan it for you if it’s not here yet.
Title: Old England: A Pictorial Museum
City: London
Date: 1845
Total items: 407
Out of copyright (called public domain in the USA), hence royalty-free for all purposes usage credit requested, or as marked.
“There was one sport exclusively confined to the noble and wealthy orders of society—hawking—which chiefly flourished and declined during the present period [the first half of the 17th century]. To a people who found habitually much more of pleasure than of pain or annoyance in the overcoming of difficulties, and who retaine dmuch of what our phrenologiests [...]not smothered—that’s enough; so on he goes with greater zest than ever from the excitement of the check.” (p. 126) [more...] [$]
Four men are playing at dice, a game called tric-trac. A discarded clay pipe on the floor, together with a wine-jug and an open tankard, hint at moral excesses. The men wear seventeenth-century costumes; one has a feather in his hat. The engraving is by S. Sly: probably the wood-engraving company of Stephen Sly, who also did a lot of work for the Illustrated London News. It is made after a [...]A Game of Tric-Trac. In the original painting the men are in a guardroom and there are plate mail and a spear in the foreground. [more...] [$]
Let us now follow [William Shakespeare] into his retirement (about 1604) at the place so associated with all his early hopes and struggles, and joys and sorrows—Stratford—the place that was evidently, from first to last, tenderly endeared to him. Here, or in its neighbourhood, he, and his wife, and his children were born; and here had one of the last [...] [more...] [$]
The engraving shows the interior of a large tent or pavillion, with a banner reading Socitie of Prince Arthur hanging from the ceiling, festooned with a garland. There is a round table and, in the front, a corpulent monk with tonsured head and a large wine-flask in his hand; a man dressed as a satyr perhaps, with a laurel wreath of victory on his head, gestures towards the entrance of the canopy, and outside we see archers and spear-men lined up, flags flying, [...] [more...] [$]
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