Bound in red goatskin with elaborate gold tooling, gilt edges, silk doublures, Queen Victoria's bookplate on flyleaf

George IV's association with the Herculaneum papyri continued after the reports by John Hayter and the gift to Oxford University in 1810.  In 1816 he received a further gift of twelve papyri from the King of the Two Sicilies, and they were entrusted to the German Dr F.C.L. Sickler for him to unroll and decipher.  He worked unsuccessfully on seven of the twelve rolls, which he unfortunately destroyed while trying to open, and was eventually paid off after the report by a parliamentary committee on his work in 1817.  The task was then handed over to Sir Humphry Davy (of safety lamp fame) and Peter Elmsley (1773-1825) a classical scholar, who had more success.  This volume, presenting a sample of their results, was illustrated in watercolour by Sir William Gell (1777-1836), an archaeologist and topographer, whose illustrative work was of no great artistic merit, but was at least honest and accurate.  The complete volume was presented to George IV as patron of the project.