More about the Victoriana ...

OUR ISLANDS AND THEIR PEOPLE AS SEEN WITH CAMERA AND PENCIL Embracing Perfect Photographic and Descriptive Representations of the People and the Islands lated Acquired from Spain, including Hawaii and the Philippines: also their material resources and productions...

 Here's the actual name of the set of books I mentioned in the previous post.

here's another look at my photo of it.

And since it's such an interesting piece of Americana  (at least to me)... here's the full description for you:

B&W Illustrations; "Published in twenty-four parts of thirty-two quarto pages each. Superbly Illustrated with more than twelve hundred special photographs, photogravures in colors, and new colored maps." The islands included in this volume (several of which were acquired at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War) are: the Hawaiian Islands, the Philippine Island groups, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Isle of Pines, and Samoa. This work is contained in two large folios which contain numerous black and white photographs, full color photogravure plates and several full color maps. The descriptions of the islands include historic events, topography, geography, agricultural, mineral and other resources, city and country life, and much more. Rust colored cloth covered boards have gilt lettering to the spine and gilt and black lettering and decorations to the front covers of the books. The gilding on the spines of both volumes and on the front cover of volume two has faded and dulled somewhat (it varies - with more dulling to the spines than the cover). There is some bumping to the spine ends, corners and edges of the book covers along with some edge tearing, light fraying and wear to the cloth at the corners and spine ends. The text blocks of both volumes are clean and bright. With the exception of two pages, the text blocks are clean, bright and fresh. There is one small tear to the bottom of one page in volume two, followed by two pages with spots of discoloration. Volume one has one page which has a long, tear - almost a full page tear - which has been repaired. All plates are present and in very nice clean, bright condition. Overall, a very good to near very good set of this heavy, profusely illustrated work. The photographs (black and white) were taken by Walter B. Townsend. Special descriptive matter and narratives were added by Jose De Olivas. The entire work was introduced by Major-General Joseph Wheeler of the United States Army.