Hampshire:- Discovering the 19th Century World of Portsmouth Artist R.H.C. Ubsdell

Volume 1     ISBN 978-0-957-3236-0-5

Volume 2     ISBN 978-0-957-3236-1-2
For anyone visiting Hampshire and looking to find the remains of the 19th Century World of Jane Austen, Nelson, Florence Nightingale, William Cobbett, Edward Thomas, Gilbert White, The Barings, Dalgety, Thomas Sopwith and many others, these books are ideal, for they contain the watercolours of R.H.C. Ubsdell reproduced in full colour throughout, the best guide we have of what Hampshire looked like in the first half of the 19th Century, before the age of photography.
The books are arranged Geographically by coastline, main roads and river valleys, and therefore provide an excellent guide to the history that relates to the individual regions and places within Hampshire. Together with the original watercolours the author has added his own photographs of the same scenes today, and his research on what happened between ‘then’ and ‘now’.
Volume 1 provides background to Ubsdell’s life and career and the ‘must see’ sights, countryside, and grand houses, whilst Volume 2 concentrates on the River Test in its course upstream northwards from its mouth at Southampton  through its clear trout streams, and the curve eastwards into the land of Jane Austen.  The book contains details and pictures of the houses associated with Jane and her family, some never previously published, and the story of her niece Anna Lefroy, Jane’s ‘first fan’ who inherited the manuscript of Jane’s Last novel ‘Sanditon’ and attempted its completion.  Ubsdell is identified as the artist of the 1845 miniature of Anna Lefroy by a label on its case, and by stylistic comparison the miniature of Sir Charles Austen and the ‘unseen’ portrait of Jane Austen, most probably composed in 1845 according to the memory of Anna. The later portraits of Sir Francis Austen are probably also by Ubsdell.
Hardback, A4 Landscape, Colour Throughout, Vol 1  148 pages, Vol 2  143 pages.  Profusely illustrated with original paintings, old maps,  and 21st Century photographs. A century and a half late, the artist’s great great great grandson, produces the guide to Hampshire that Ubsdell’s patron, Sir Frederic Madden, Keeper of  Manuscripts at The British Museum would write, but never did….
The books are available from:
 www.Amazon.co.uk at £22.50 each plus postage (fulfillment by Amazon)
www.Amazon.co.uk at £22.50 each plus postage (fulfilled by the publisher and sent NEXT DAY COURIER within the U.K.)
Telephone credit card orders from Helen Terrell at Combined Book Services (the Distributors) 01892 837171 at £22.50 including free NEXT DAY COURIER within the U.K.  SPECIAL OFFER from Combined Book Services,  BUY BOTH VOLUMES FOR £32.50 including free NEXT DAY COURIER within the U.K.    Postage to outside the U.K. at cost.
and from a growing number of  Waterstones and Blackwell’s branches, W.H. Smith Southsea, Portsmouth and Winchester Cathedrals, Portsmouth City Museum, P&G Wells Winchester, Southsea Gallery, Jaffe & Neale Bookshop Chipping Norton, Whitchurch Silk Mill, Hayling Island Bookshop, and many other independent bookshops via ‘Nielsen’ and ‘Pub Easy’.  Combined Book Services act as distributor for the book trade.
Combined Book Services, Unit D, Paddock Wood Distribution Centre, Paddock Wood, Tonbridge, Kent. TN12 6UU
www.combook.co.uk