There’s nothing that makes a room feel steeped in history and knowledge than a case filled with vintage books. The lure of the book may be sometimes lost in this age of Kindle and the Ipad, but to many there’s still nothing quite like the printed page. Collecting rare books is fun and fulfilling, and there will be many opportunities during Americana Week’s Antiques Shows to start building your library. Collecting old books also provides an opportunity to learn more about American antiques and art.

Through this series we’ll try to provide a list of books that aren’t too hard to come by, and ones that are still relatively attainable, but no less worthy of treasure. One such book is a two-volume series called Picturesque America.

Before the age of constant media, moving images, computers or even photographs, there was a still none-the-less the desire to explore the world within the confines of the home. This series provided reader’s with a wealth of romance and knowledge about the scenic United States. Today the volumes are a desireable gift for foreign dignitaries. When President George H.W. Bush met Gorbachev at a summit conference he presented two finely bound volumes of this work as a gift to the Soviet premier.

Picturesque America was published by D. Appleton and Company of New York in 1872 and 1874 and edited by the poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant, who also edited the New York Evening Post. Essays in the book, together with its nine hundred wood engravings and fifty steel engravings, are considered to have had a profound influence on the growth of tourism and the historic preservation movement in the United States.

The engravings are based on the paintings of some of the best American landscape painters of the time including John Frederick Kensett, James David Smillie, Thomas Moran, William and James McDougal Hart, Worthington Whittredge, Homer Dodge Martin, Robert Swain Gifford, Thomas Cole and others. It was great to see a copy of Picturesque America in the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas this summer, along with the traveling Hudson River masterpieces from the New York Historical Society (now reinstalled in the New York galleries).

Don’t Miss Book Alley at the Pier!

Picturesque America was a huge undertaking. It cost nearly $140,000 in 1870s dollars just for the traveling artists to make the drawings of everything from the City of Saint Louis to the Rocky Mountains. It was first published as a magazine series and then as a subscription book.

As stated by Sue Rainey, in her Creating ‘Picturesque America, “As the first publication to celebrate the entire continental nation, it enabled Americas, after the trauma of the Civil War, to construct a national self-image based on reconciliation between North and South and incorporation of the West.”

As with most things collectible, it’s important to find volumes in the best condition possible. It’s also important to make sure there aren’t missing pages. It’s possible engravings have been removed, colorized and sold individually. In poor condition, sets can be found for less than $200, but sets in good condition can bring considerably more, upwards of $2,000. The bound volumes were also issued with different bindings, including those with leather and gold leaf.

Purchasing the book may be the easiest way to gain a fine collection of work by notable Hudson River School painters.