England & France sketchbooks.- Sykes (Isabella, ?wife of Daniel Sykes, MP, 1766-1832, sister-in-law of Marianne Thornton, 1765-1815, wife of Henry Thornton, banker and political economist, of Clapham Common, 1760-1815, of Raywell Hall, 1765-1844) 2 sketchbooks of views in England & France, 81 accomplished watercolours and drawings, including: panorama of Cheltenham (double-page), Clifton, Worcester, Great Malvern, Chepstow Castle, Tintern Abbey, Albyn House (Essex), Isle of Wight (Alum Bay, Freshwater Bay, Brading, Ryde & Sandown Bay), Hastings, Winchelsea, Old Bishop's Palace & St Cross Winchester, Meaux & Rheims, (comprising: 57 pencil and pen and ink drawings and 24 monochrome wash watercolours), some drawings foxed and browned, some loose or working loose, some creased tissue guards, original straight-grained morocco (not uniform), rubbed, some surface wear, spines splitting at head and tail, oblong 4to, 1831, 1839-40.
⁂ The Sykes family of Hull was connected by marriage to the Thornton and Wilberforce families. Henry Thornton was an MP and therefore Isabella Sykes spent much of her time in London with her sister-in-law Marianne Thornton, at their house in Clapham. Isabella Sykes' travel journal for 1816 is preserved amongst the Thornton papers at Cambridge University Library.