A & C Black Collection

The publishing house of Adam and Charles Black was founded in 1807 when Adam Black opened his own bookshop shortly after his twenty-third birthday.. In 1851, the firm bought the copyright of Sir Walter Scott's Waverley novels for £27,000. During the years 1827–1903 the firm published the 7th, 8th and 9th editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Originally the company was based in Edinburgh where many booksellers were also publishers and all publishers were booksellers. In June 1889 the company made the huge move from Scotland to London — taking up residence in 4,5,6 and 7 Soho Square, together known as the Soho Bazaar.

The Black's Guides were travel guide books published by the Adam and Charles Black firm of Edinburgh (later London) beginning in 1839. Later the firm also published the A. & C. Black Colour Books: Twenty Shilling Series (1901–21), a series of high-quality travel books illustrated in color by various artists. Pricing. 20/- in the early nineteen hundreds was more than the average weekly wage.

The series' style tended towards the "colloquial, with fewer cultural pretensions" than its leading competitor Baedeker Guides. Contributors included David T. Ansted, Charles Bertram Black, and A. R. Hope Moncrieff. The A. & C. Black's 20/- series used water-colour artists and was the first to use the new "three colour" process for colour plates. The books were lavish in their use of colour illustrations with most volumes having 70 or more colour plates.

In the 20/- series the three elements of a book - the text; the illustrations and the cover - come together beautifully. The text was not closely associated with the illustrations, authors were not expected to describe the illustrations and were specifically required to produce "bright readable descriptions not overloaded with statistics"

The standard print run for the 20/- series was 3000 and yet, despite this, some titles with the same print run are much harder to find today. In addition to the 20/- standard edition most of the books published up to about 1906 were also produced in De-Luxe Limited editions (typically priced at two guineas) and a very few "super De-Luxe" editions with original watercolours (originally priced at five guineas).

Dust wrappers appeared from about 1905 and some published before this date had wrappers produced for them. They were not, in general, attractive and were meant to do exactly what dust-wrappers are supposed to do - protect the book. But all these dust jackets do is cover up the real beauty of the covers so they are often not found or change the value of the books.

Making of the Nations. Each volume in this hardback series, published by Adam and Charles Black in London, contained "32 full-page illustrations from original paintings and from photographs, also maps, plans, and other illustrations in the text".

References:

Alexander Nicolson, ed. (1885), Memoirs of Adam Black (2nd ed.), Edinburgh: A. and C. Black.

Available Books

Book Title	Date
Abbotsford Painted and Described	1905
Algeria and Tunis, Painted and Described	1906
Alpine Flowers and Gardens, Painted and Described	1910
Australia, Painted and Described	1910
Beautiful Wales Painted and Described	1905
Belgium, Painted and Described	1908
Birds of Britain	1907
Bonnie Scotland Painted and Described	1912
Brabant and East Flanders, Painted and Described	1907
Bruges and West Flanders, Painted and Described	1906
Burma, Painted and Described	1905
Canada, Painted and Described	1907
Canterbury Painted and Described	1907
Constantinople Painted and Described	1906
Cornwall Painted and Described	1915
Deeside Painted and Described	1911
Dutch Bulbs and Gardens, Painted and Described	1909
Edinburgh Painted and Described	1904
Egypt, Painted and Described	1902
Egyptian Birds	1909
Familiar London Painted by Rose Barton	1904
Florence & Some Tuscan Cities Painted and Described	1905
Galloway Painted and Described	1908
Gardens of England, Painted and Described	1911
Geneva, Painted and Described	1908
Germany, Painted and Described	1912
Greece Painted and Described	1906
Happy England Painted and Described	1909
Highlands and Islands of Scotland Painted and Described	1907
Hungary, Painted and Described	1909
Ireland Painted and Described	1907
Isle of Man Painted and Described	1909
Isle of Wight Painted and Described	1908
Jamaica, Painted and Described	1906
Kashmir, Painted and Described	1911
Kew Gardens, Painted and Described	1908
La Côte d'Émeraude, Painted and Described	1912
Lancashire Painted and Described	1921
Lausanne, Painted and Described	1909
Liege and the Ardennes, Painted and Described	1908
Liverpool Painted and Described	1907
London to the Nore Painted and Described	1905
Malta, Painted and Described	1910
Middlesex Painted and Described	1907
Montreux, Painted and Described	1908
Morocco, Painted and Described	1904
Moscow, Painted and Described	1912
Naples, Painted and Described	1904
New Zealand, Painted and Described	1908
Norfolk and Suffolk Painted and Described	1921
North Devon Painted and Described	1906
Northern Spain, Painted and Described	1906
Norway, Painted and Described	1905
Nuremberg, Painted and Described	1905
Oxford Painted and Described	1903
Pompeii, Painted and Described	1910
Provincial Russia, Painted and Described	1913
Rome, Painted and Described	1905
Russia, Painted and Described	1913
Scottish Life and Character	1906
Sicily, Painted and Described	1911
South America, Painted and Described	1912
South Devon Painted and Described	1907
Southern India, Painted and Described	1914
Southern Spain, Painted and Described	1908
St. Petersburg, Painted and Described	1910
Surrey Painted and Described	1906
Surrey Painted and Described	1922
Sussex Painted and Described	1906
The Alps, Painted and Described	1904
The Armies of India, Painted and Described	1911
The British Empire	1912
The Canary Islands, Painted and Described	1911
The Channel Islands Painted and Described	1904
The Clyde River and Firth Painted and Described	1907
The English Lakes Painted and Described	1908
The Heart of Scotland Painted and Described	1909
The Holy Land, Painted and Described	1902
The Homes of Tennyson Painted and Described	1905
The Inns of Court Painted and Described	1909
The Italian Lakes, Painted and Described	1912
The New Forest Painted and Described	1904
The Ramparts of Empire	1910
The Rivers and Streams of England Painted and Described	1909
The Riviera Painted & Described	1907
The Royal Navy, Painted and Described	1907
The Savage South Seas, Painted and Described	1907
The Story of the British Navy	1913
The Tower of London Painted and Described	1908
The Upper Engadine Painted and Described	1907
The West Indies, Painted and Described	1905
The Wye Painted and Described	1910
Tibet and Nepal, Painted and Described	1905
Tyrol, Painted and Described	1908
Wessex Painted and Described	1906
Westminster Abbey Painted and Described	1904
Winchester Painted and Described	1910
Windsor Painted and Described	1908
Yorkshire Coast and Moorland Scenes Painted and Described	1904
Yorkshire Dales and Fells Painted and Described	1906
Yorkshire Painted and Described	1925
Yorkshire Vales and Wolds Painted and Described	1908
Venice, by Mortimer Menpes	1904
Italy	1913