Nineveh and its remains:

A very attractive, uniformly bound set of first editions describing Layard's two expeditions to Nineveh, resulting in some of the most important archaeological discoveries of the nineteenth century.

The first work gives an account of Layard's discoveries in Mesoptamia beginning in 1840. There he first came into contact with the excavations on the Kuyunjik Mound near Mosul directed by Emil Botta. In 1842 Layard returned to Constantinople where he was employed by Stratford Canning, who encouraged his archaeological interests and eventually undertook to meet the cost of excavations on the Kuyunjik site which Botta had by then abandoned. Layard was enabled to return to Mosul and begin his own excavations, which continued until 1847 when he returned to England. In fact the book's title is misleading since most of the material deals with discoveries made at Nimrud, not at Nineveh.

The second work is the account account of Layard's important second British expedition in 1849, describing in detail the discoveries that were made, especially focusing on the momentous Assyrian artefacts. Apart from his great archaeological accomplishment in identifying Kouyunjik as the site of the ancient city Nineveh, Layard provides an extensive analysis of the ancient Assyrian world and its history, as revealed by the discoveries, and also writes about the daily life and customs of the country.