The history of England,

A choice copy of one of the finest gallery books of the nineteenth century. The bindings are exceptionally well preserved and the text is crisp and clean.

'David Hume's History of England was one of the seminal histories in the eighteenth century. First printed between 1754 and 1761, it covers the history of England, and, in later volumes, Great Britain, from the invasion of Julius Caesar through to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Hume was a Scot, and, in the years following the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, anti-Scottish sentiment in England was high. The History was a way for Hume to emphasise that the ruling Hanoverian dynasty was a legitimate one, James VII & II having forfeited the Crown by fleeing London in 1688. This type of history provided a grand narrative of English history, one of triumph, decline and resurgence, themes that inspired similar narrative histories such as Edward Gibbon's of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which was first published between 1776 and 1789. Although not absolutely accurate, and often politically biased, it remained influential until well into the nineteenth century' (Royal Collection Trust).

'The patronage of history painting became an especially prominent issue in 1806, following the demise of John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery and Robert Bowyer's Historic Gallery. Boydell and Bowyer were print publishers. Launched in 1786 and 1792 respectively, their galleries had sought to turn history painting into a profitable enterprise. Both men commissioned leading artists to paint subjects from a famous British text The Works of Shakespeare in Boydell's case and David Hume's History of England (1754–61) in Bowyer's. The resulting canvases were publicly exhibited and engraved, the publishers generating revenue by selling the engravings in periodic instalments. These ventures were initially successful but, after losing access to the lucrative European print market during the Napoleonic Wars, both became financially unsustainable. The closure of the Shakespeare Gallery was announced in March 1804 and completed the following January. One month later, Bowyer applied to Parliament for permission to dispose of his paintings by lottery, initiating a lengthy process which concluded in April 1807 with the dispersal of the collection. Together with fellow publisher Thomas Macklin, who undertook a similarly ill-fated project with subjects from English poetry in 1787–99, Boydell and Bowyer provided a steady stream of historical commissions for British artists at a time when few other patrons were investing in the genre' (Katherine Gazzard, 'The Snob's Chaldron' Alexander Davison and the Private Patronage of History Painting in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain', British Art Studies, Issue 7).

Purchase of the set was by subscription for regularly issued parts only. The total price of the work was 60 guineas, a huge sum at the time, ensuring both the luxury and rarity of the set. This type of publication, relying on the accuracy of the binder to ensure completeness, frequently led to copies lacking a few plates.