Brown pigskin spine with tan title plate and gilt title. Brown marbled boards. Dimensions are for one volume.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

A quality 1785 edition of the original 1736 book. Full Title: “Eboracum: or the History and Antiquities of the City of York From its Original to the Present Time Together with the History of the Cathedral Church and the Lives of the Archbishops of that See, From the First Introduction of Christianity into the Northern Parts of this Island, to the Present State and Condition of that Magnificent Fabrick. Collected from Authentic Manuscripts, Publick Records, Ancient Chronicles, and Modern Historians”. Half leather binding with gilt decoration on spine and around edge of covers. Contains all listed single and fold-out plates containing illustrations and maps as well as whole page illustrations on the reverse of text and vignette illustrations. The binding is sound, pages are clean. Contains many black and white illustrations. No dust jacket, as published.

Francis Drake (January 1696 – 16 March 1771) was an English antiquary and surgeon, best known as the author of an influential history of York, which he entitled Eboracum after the Roman name for the city. Drake was born in Pontefract, where his father, Reverend Francis Drake, was vicar, and was baptised there on 22 January 1696. His elder brother was the clergyman Samuel Drake. While still an adolescent, he was apprenticed to a York surgeon called Christopher Birbeck. Birbeck died in 1717, and, at the age of 21, Drake took over the practice. Ten years later he was appointed to the prestigious office of city surgeon of York.

Drake had always been interested in history and had inherited a number of historical manuscripts. In 1729, he contacted Thomas Hearne, asking for help in compiling a history of York, but to no avail. His half-sister’s husband, however, who was a schoolmaster in Leeds, encouraged him, and, with the aid of a number of other historians and collectors, he started work. Acknowledged as giving Drake assistance with Eboracum were: John Anstis, Brian Fairfax, Roger Gale, George Holmes, Henry Keepe, Benjamin Langwith, and Browne Willis.

By April 1731, Drake was asking the city corporation for permission to inspect the historical documents in its care, and the corporation, as well as allowing him to do so, voted him £50 towards the cost of acquiring and printing illustrations for his book. Another £50 was contributed by Lord Burlington, who had rescued Drake from an unjust imprisonment for debt and was the dedicatee of the book.

Eboracum, a folio-sized book of around 800 pages with the subtitle The History and Antiquities of the City of York, from its Original to the Present Time; together with the History of the Cathedral Church and the Lives of the Archbishops, was published in 1736, much of the cost having been borne by the 540 subscribers, who included the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, but not the Archbishop of York, Lancelot Blackburne, for reasons that are not clear.