Collectif - 3 Albums "L'illustration" - 1844-1846

3 Albums of L'Illustration 1844-1846. Extremely rare copies - complete edition of the famous illustrated weekly - Edition published in Paris, Rue de Richelieu, in-folio format (28 x 37 cm) -
Vol. IV. No. 80 of 7 September 1844 to No. 104 of 22 February 1845; 400 pages /
Vol. V. No. 105 of 1 March 1845 to No. 131 of 30 August 1845, 436 pages /
Vol. VI. No. 132 of 6 September 1845 to No. 157 of 28 February 1846, 420 pages -
Publisher's red faux-leather bindings with corners, smooth spines with title and years, red hardcover boards, 1256 pages - Founded in 1843, it is the first French illustrated newspaper printed in large format. It features numerous recurring sections across all domains: National and International Politics, Military Events, news from the Gotha and crowned heads, Travel and Discoveries, the Sciences, Literary Chronicles, Theater and Music, Fashion, Musical scores, etc. -
800 illustrations per volume, in the text and on full pages, including many double-page spreads, numerous maps and plans, as well as a very large number of humorous and caricature drawings by Gavarni, Bertall, Cham, Edmond Morin, etc., contributing to the making of these works which also reflect nineteenth-century society and the news of its era -
The years 1844-1845 fall within a pivotal period of the 19th century marked by enormous technological advances, major geopolitical expansions, and the beginnings of major humanitarian and social crises - Under the reign of Louis-Philippe (July Monarchy) colonial tensions and political instabilities preceding the European revolutions of 1848 also emerge -
- Notably in 1844 (non-exhaustive list): Franco-Moroccan War. Conflict between France and the Algerian Emir Abd al-Qadir - Having capitulated at the end of the Opium War, China signs the Wanghia Treaty with the United States and the Huangpu Treaty with France, opening its ports to Western trade - The Democrat James K. Polk wins the American presidential election - The first line of the electric telegraph devised by Samuel Morse - The Belgian engineer Egide Walschaerts files a patent for a steam distribution system for locomotives, which will become the most widely used in the world - Patent for vulcanization of rubber filed by Charles Goodyear - Banking regulation in the United Kingdom (monopoly on issuing banknotes at the Bank of England) - Independence of the Dominican Republic - Alexandre Dumas serializes his masterpiece "The Three Musketeers" - George Williams founds in London the Young Men's Christian Association to address the miserable living conditions of young workers during the Industrial Revolution - In Greece, adoption of the first constitution - Beginning of the reign of King Oscar I over Sweden and Norway -
- Notable events in 1845: Start of the Great Famine in Ireland, which caused a million deaths and drove the Irish to migrate to the United States - Annexation of Texas by the United States, thus beginning the American-Mexican War (the Fort Alamo episode) - First Anglo-Sikh War. The British initiate a bloody conflict against the British East India Company - New Zealand Wars between the British and the Maori tribes - Dramatic disappearance of Sir John Franklin's expedition, which had set sail to chart the Northwest Passage in the Arctic - First photograph of the Sun: Foucault and Fizeau create the first daguerreotype of the Sun's surface - Richard Wagner composes his opera Tannhäuser -
Good condition, however the bindings are very lightly rubbed, but the quires are firmly fixed and the interiors are fresh