Folio. In 10 parts, as issued. With 42 engraved plates (including additional engraved title pages), two large colour maps (Palestine and Sinai and Egypt respectively) and hundreds of in-text woodcut illustrations. Original publisher's cloth-backed pictorial powder blue wrappers. Lightly rubbed and marked, some bindings shaken, with leaves/plates detached.

A comprehensive collection of articles, profusely illustrated with fine steel-engravings and presented here in the original 10, ‘10 shilling’ , parts (issued to subscribers only,) concerning the history, archaeology, and topography of Palestine and environs, compiled by British Army officer Sir Charles William Wilson (1836-1905) from the work of preeminent explorers of region including Charles Warren and Major Claude Reignier Conder. In 1864, under the patronage of philanthropist Baroness Angela Burdett- Coutts, Wilson conducted the first official survey of Jerusalem in an effort to improve to provision of drinking water for the population. This initial survey expanded to an expedition of the entirety of the Holy Land via the establishment of the Palestine Exploration Fund, with Wilson as first director. Wilson's unprecedented experience and working knowledge of the geography and antiquities of Palestine positioned him as the ideal candidate to edit this monumental work that deftly marries scholarship with outstanding visual delight, and notably contains the first printed views of the interior of the Dome of the Rock, a site traditionally off-limits to Christian artists.