FIRST EDITION. 4to. (11 x 8.7 inches). Title printed in red and black, 81 fine illustrations in the text printed in full colour. Contemporary deluxe binding by Riviere of bright red straight-grained morocco. Both boards with ruled line and decorative floral borders, inner corner decorations, all in gilt. Spine with double raised bands decorated with gilt double wavy lines. Dark green morocco onlays in between the bands with gilt floral rolls. Compartments ruled, letered and decorated in gilt. Decorative gilt roll to the board edges. Floral gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt. Marbled endpapers. --- Neat gift presentation, dated December 31st 1863, on a sheet of paper and mounted onto a blank free endpaper. A few small areas of rubbing to extremities, else a fine copy. First Edition of one of the finest examples of Victorian colour printing and the first with the colour illustrations designed purposely for the text. The book was the brainchild of the printer Edmund Evans, who declared it to be the most carefully executed book he had ever printed. The illustrator and antiquary James Doyle was the uncle of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. -- Muir, Victorian Illustrated Books, p.158.