Histoie abregee des Coquillages de Mer, de leurs Moeurs, et de leurs Amours

Versailles: P. D. Pierres, An VIII [1799-1800]. First edition.. Occasional light foxing, a near fine copy.. Pp. [iv], viii, 202, engraved headpiece, 21 engraved plates printed in bistre, contemporary French marbled calf expertly rebacked, gilt title and panels on spine, marbled endpapers, 4to. This romantic conchology, specifically addressed to female readers as a subject worthy of their study. The text is a mélange of natural history observations, remarks on the use of shells in commerce and art, and moral parables drawn from the life of molluscs. The author was a dilettante naturalist, a favorite courtier of Louis XVI, and possessor of an admirable natural history cabinet. During the Revolution, after a brief imprisonment, he was keeper of the statues at Versailles, and was sent to Rome as one of the commissioners in charge of removing art works from that city. See also Nissen ZBI 955. Discrete stamp of “Richard I. Johnson” to the half-title page. Mr. Johnson (1925-2020) was a long time Research Associate at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. He published his first scientific article in 1941, at the age of 16, beginning his life as a gentleman scholar, an amateur with a worldwide scholarly reputation who produced more than 50 papers about malacology. He served in the U.S. Army in World War II, before returning to Massachusetts and graduating from Harvard in 1951. Over six decades Johnson assembled perhaps the largest private collection of books and journals on molluscs, including titles seldom found even in research libraries.