Two blue quarter-leather volumes of The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine. The Century Co, New York and F Warne & Co, London. May 1885 to October 1885, Volume 8.May 1886 to October 1886, Volume 10. The books include both fiction and non-fiction with some Memoranda on the Civil War, Poetry, Prose, Open Letters, Topics on the Time, and general writings on many topics. Examples include Amateur Ballooning, Birds' Eggs, Arts, Architecture, Chicago Art Institute, Meh Lady, Zoological Station at Naples, Dogs, Canoeing, Alaska, The New Orleans Exposition, Orchids, George Eliot's County, Social Life in the Colonies, Whittier, etc. The books are heavily illustrated with full and partial page black and white illustrations.
The books have maroon marble decoration on the cover and blue leather corners. The outer edge of the pages are marbled with colors of pink (red), blue, green and yellow. The leather is bumped and rubbed in many areas. There is a gilt strip in the cover corners. Each backstrip has five raised ribs with a bumped gilt decoration. The endpapers are marbled like the cover. The interior pages are crisp with moderate tanning throughout.
Volume 8: The outer edge of the cover leather is bumped. The cover leather is rubbed away at the upper left and lower left corners. There is leather missing at the lower backstrip. There is quite a bit of leather missing on the back cover in the corners and near the upper cover / back cover connection. There are some rubbed areas on the cover marble. 976 pages.
Volume 10: The leather on the outer edge of the corners is bumped and there is under board exposed on the cover corners. Areas of the backstrip are bumped with under leather exposed at the lower backstrip and above the title. A large section of leather is missing on the back cover on the lower left corner and upper left corner. Dimensions: 9.75 x 7.15".
