Zoología

No. 21, Plate CI from Audubon's Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. Brilliant hand-colored lithograph transferred to stone by W.E. Hitchcock and R. Trembly and printed by J.T. Bowen. Overall sheet size: 53.5 x 70 cm. (21 1/8 x 27 5/8 inches); image size (sans text) approximately 44 x 61 cm (17 1/4 x 24 inches). Fore edge gilt. Superb copy without toning, foxing, mat burn or tears.; Folio; All shipments through USPS insured Priority Mail.

London: Kegan, Paul, Trench & Co., 1889. Second edition., 1889. Second British edition. 8vo. Frontispiece portrait of Frank Oates. xlix, 433 pp. Illustrated throughout, many from drawings and water-color drawings by Frank Oates and William Oates. Included are 6 chromolithographs in the text and 14 hand-colored plates in the Appendix. There are four fold-out maps. Bound in the original pictorial green cloth on beveled boards, stamped in gilt and dark brown. The second edition was greatly expanded over the first edition of 1881, including now the stunningly beautiful 14 hand-colored prints. This book was the Oates family copy and has the bookplates of William Edward Oates (who accompanied Frank on the journey herein related) and Robert Washington Oates on the front pastedown and front free endpaper respectively, and, notably, the bookplate of the late Frank Oates (1840-1875) on the verso of the rear free endpaper. Beneath Robert Oates' bookplate is a small printed label which reads… Leer más

London : J Johnson, 1795 A very good copy of this scarce title, with 46 superb hand coloured plates. William Lewin (1747-1795) intended this work to be the first volume of 'The Insects of Great Britain' series. However he died in 1795 with only this volume completed. This is the rare first issue which has the series title page and ends 'End of Volume I'. The second issue amends the title to the 'Papilios of Great Britain' making it stand-alone. This copy is a later half vellum binding with blind stamped decoration to the buckram boards. Page edges have light marbling and the endpapers are marbled. The binding is in very good condition. There is corner wear particularly to the bottom corners, which are bumped with leather loss. Contents: title pages in French and English; half title page 'The insects of Great Britain'; text in French and English with 46 hand coloured plates; index 3pp. There are 2 mispaginations: plate 6 with text is placed after plates 7 and 8; and… Leer más

London : Printed for the Author and for F C and J Rivington, 1806 A fair set of the final 6 volumes of Edward Donovan's beautiful work, with 216 hand coloured plates. Donovan issued the first 10 volumes in parts between 1792 and 1801. He viewed the work as finished, issuing a new title, contents pages and advert. He decided to restart the work issuing Vol XI 5 years later and completing Vol XVI in 1813. This set is in largely contemporary full leather bindings with raised bands, gilt decorative compartments, title and volume labels to spine. The boards have a delicate scroll-type decoration around the edges. All the volumes have wear to corners and edges and have varying degrees of wear to spine joints and ends. Board surfaces have some scuffing. Marbled endpapers. All volumes are complete, with 36 plates per volume. The work was issued in parts over time, so the paper quality varies with some being brown-toned or spotty. Vol XI: front hinge rebacked and spine relaid. 1806; with title; advert pp… Leer más

Venice: Heredi di Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1573. Large thick quarto, title page with woodcut device, pp (172), 971, (i), (11), illustrated with many hundreds of woodcuts of plants and animals, the title page has a very old paper repair where a name had been excised, worm hole affects the lower margin of fourteen pages of the preliminaries, without loss of text, ten pages of the preliminaries have a very old neat paper restoration, very occasional age-spotting and foxing, some occasional browning due to paper quality variations, one light tear to pages 257/258 without loss, one ink smear on page 259, a few ink spots on pages 32/33 with very slight loss of text. Overall, however, this is an exceptionally clean, tight copy. Bound in full speckled calf (probably early twentieth-century), with one gilt line around upper and lower cover, raised bands on the spine; the upper joint is cracking but still firm and sound. The Hartland Library copy, with bookplate, stamp and ticket pocket on the front endpaper. Also… Leer más

Very good copies of Volumes 3 and 4 only of the very rare four-volume, first edition of this beautiful German entomological classic.
Complete with 189 beautifully handcoloured engraved plates in two volumes. (The four-volume set contains 438 plates.)
Engraved and delicately hand-coloured by Johann Carl Bock, Johan Georg Sturm, Johann Georg Klinger, and others, after drawings by Esper.
Esper's illustrations depict the complete life cycles of many European butterflies and moths, many along with their host plants. Many specimens are shown in pupa, larva (caterpillar) and adult forms, while some adult butterflies and moths show alternate sides (upper and lower) of their wings on the left and right wings.
Volume 3: 1782, 396 text pages, 81 handcoloured plates I-LXXIX.
Volume 4: 1786, 372 text pages, 108 handcoloured plates LXXX-CLXXXIII (Noct. 1 to 104).
Eugen Johann Christoph Esper (1742-1810) was a German zoologist, entomologist and phycologist, professor of zoology at Erlangen and director of the… Leer más

Very good copy of the increasingly hard-to-find monograph on the extinct dodo, Raphus cucullatus, and Rodrigues solitaire, Pezophaps solitaria.First edition of this finely illustrated classicComplete in two parts: Part I. History and External Characters of the Dodo, Solitaire and other Extinct Brevipennate Birds by H. E. Strickland, and Part II: Osteology of the Dodo and Solitaire by A.G. Melville. With two hand-coloured lithographs after the famous 17th-century paintings of the dodo by Roelandt SaveryAltogether 18 lithographic illustrations (Numbered I-XV with three bis plates III*, IV*, and IX*) of dodo and solitaire specimens, landscapes, bones, skulls and reconstructions drawn and lithographed by Joseph Dinkel, Tuffen West and Werner, as well as nine woodcuts in the text. With errata slip and 12-page catalogue of new books in rear. Hugh Edwin Strickland (1811-1853) was an English geologist, ornithologist, naturalist and systematist. His works include Outline of the Geology of the Neighbourhood of… Leer más

Very good copy of this classic of 18th century entomology, the first book on British beetles.

Complete with 42 finely hand-coloured copperplates of beetles, arrayed on the pages like specimens in a tray in a cabinet of curiosities.

The plates show some previously unpublished beetle and bug species, many in their tiny original size. The European stag beetle, minotaur, dung beetles, carrion, leaf and weevil beetles, click beetles, tumbling flower beetles, tiger beetles, water beetles, longhorns, carabids, ladybirds, and many others are shown in beautiful colors in 535 intricate illustrations.

The two plain numismatic plates show various gold medallions presented to Martyn from the Pope, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, King Ferdinand IV of Sicily, Queen Maria Carolina of Naples, etc.

The English Entomologist, exhibiting all the Coleopterous Insects found in England, including upwards of 500 Different Species, arranged and named according to the Linnean System.

With an engraved title page, dedication… Leer más

A beautifully and vividly hand-coloured copy of this 18th-century ornithological classic.

With 50 vibrantly hand-coloured copperplates after illustrations by Peter Brown

Drawn mainly from specimens or drawings in the cabinets of curiosities of Marmaduke Tunstall (12 birds, 10 insects and one animal), zoologist Thomas Pennant (seven birds), Taylor White, James Lee of Hammersmith, Mr Yeats of Margaret Street, Mr Moon of Hyde Park, apothecaries Richard Green and Mr Jackson, banker Robert Child, Lady Read, zoologist Dr. Ramsay of Edinburgh, ornithologist George Edwards, and the collections of the British Museum and the Royal Society. There are also 20 birds and one insect based on sketches by Pieter Cornelius de Bevere sent from Joan Gideon Loten, Governor of Ceylon for the Dutch East India Company.

Includes critically endangered species such as the red-vented cockatoo Pl. 5, the straw-headed bulbul Pl. 12, and possibly the endangered Mauritius tody, Pl. 28.

Peter Brown was a Dane (according to… Leer más

Two complete volumes of the most important Renaissance study of zoology in Latin.

Volume 2, Oviparous Quadrupeds including reptiles and amphibia, and Volume 3, Birds, bound together in one.

With a total of 2 title vignettes and 241 woodcuts, many full-page, credited to Lucas Schan.

Historiae Animalium LIber II: De quadrupedibus oviparis, second edition, Frankfurt, Johann Wechel for Robert Cambier, 1586. 4 ff., 119 pp. with 19 woodcuts.

Historiae Animalium LIber III: De avium natura, first edition, Frankfurt, Johann Wechel for Robert Cambier, 1585. 6 ff., 806 pp. with 222 woodcuts, 13 ff.

The majority of the bird illustrations are believed to be by Lucas Schan, active 1526-58, a natural history artist and wildfowler of Strasbourg.

The woodcut of the Pica Bresillica, or toucan, is "based on a beak sent to Gessner by Giovanni Ferrerio, and the rest of the body was reconstructed from Thevet's Les singularitez de la France antarctique. " The lesser bird of paradise may have been drawn from a specimen… Leer más

Very good copy of the first edition of "one of the finest works on fishes."
Complete with 120 beautiful copperplate engravings, drawn, engraved and coloured by the author. Donovan made his drawings from recently caught fish, most while they were still living. The text often describes the location the fish was caught: the ocean sunfish, Mola mola, was "an elegant little specimen caught near the coast of Brighton."
Depicts several endangered species such as the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, and Atlantic halibut, Hippoglossus hippoglossus, and the critically endangered European sturgeon, Acipenser sturio, and angelshark, Squatina squatina.
"The paint is laid on so thickly that is frequently impossible to see the engraved lines underneath. The already rich colour is heightened with burnished highlights, albumen overglaze and metallic paint."
Complete five volumes bound in two (1,2 and 3,4,5),
Edward Donovan (1768-1837) was an Anglo-Irish naturalist and the author and illustrator of a number of… Leer más

Very good copy of the first edition in five volumes (later expanded to 10) of this classic of British ornithology.
Complete with 124 beautiful copperplate engravings, drawn, engraved and coloured by the author.
British Birds was originally issued in 50 monthly parts with two plates each, and later published in five volumes in five successive years from 1794-1798. The illustrations were based on specimens in Donovan's personal collections of about 400 species. He paid extravagently for rare birds, buying specimens from collectors and friends, poultry markets, and other museums including John Latham's, Mr Green's of Westminster, and the Leverian.
Complete in five volumes bound in three (Vols. 1 and 2, Vols. 3 and 4, Vol. 5 bound with blank pages at end). The additional Volumes 6-10 were only added 20 years later.
"The paint is laid on so thickly that is frequently impossible to see the engraved lines underneath. The already rich colour is heightened with burnished highlights, albumen overglaze and… Leer más

Rare complete set of 26 volumes of this zoological masterpiece
24 volumes bound in 12 of the Naturalist's Miscellany and 2 volumes bound in 1 of The Zoological Miscellany by William Elford Leach (the continuation published after George Shaw's death with illustrations by Richard Nodder)
With all 1,185 engraved plates in superb hand-colour
Engraved dedication leaf to Queen Charlotte, 1,065 hand-coloured engraved plates in the Naturalist's Miscellany, and 120 hand-coloured engraved plates in The Zoological MiscellanyA very good copy of this "remarkable serial" (Wood), a monumental work on natural history. Devoted to zoological subjects, and including a high proportion of birds, but also mammals, marine creatures, amphibia, reptiles, shells and insects; each subject is described in both Latin and English, and illustrated by a plate, the majority by George Shaw, Frederick Polydore Nodder and his son Richard Nodder.
Complete sets are very rare, since the work was published in 287 monthly parts over some 24… Leer más

5 unnumb. letterpress leaves (= 1 leaf 'voorbericht' and 4 leaves description of which 3 with large woodcut tail-vignettes) and 4 handcoloured engraved specimen plates. Loosely contained in publisher's printed blue cardboards. Folio (475 x 295 mm). Spine covering defective, covers soiled and with brown waterstaining in margins.
Not in Nissen, Fischbücher and Dean. Cf. Landwehr, Dutch Books with Coloured Plates no. 28 mentioning a copy with a variant imprint: Zalt-Bommel, J. Noman 1804 with the following remark: Not seen, but quoted by J. de Jong: Alphabetische Naamlyst van boeken 1790-1831. The Hague, Amsterdam 1832. Publisher's prospectus for a Dutch edition of this important ichthyological work the printing of which apart of the 4 leaves of text and accompanying plates came to a standstill for unkown reasons. If the copy cited by Landwehr isn't a ghost our copy seems to predate it, but assuming it to be extant an explanation for the two different imprints might be the elusive fact of a joint… Leer más

Complete set of all the 15 ornithology volumes from Sir William Jardine's ambitious Victorian series The Naturalist's Library
With all 478 steel engravings (463 handcoloured plates including title vignettes, one uncoloured title vignette, 14 uncoloured portraits) engraved by Scottish engraver William Lizars after illustrations by famous nonsense-verse poet and caricaturist Edward Lear, Rene-Primavere Lesson's illustrator Jean-Gabriel Pretre, ornithologists William Swainson and Prideaux J. Selby, and Jardine's illustrator James Stewart.
With portraits of several extinct species such as the Norfolk Island pigeon, passenger pigeon, great auk, and the endangered green peafowl, great green macaw, Congo grey parrot, New Zealand kaka, purple-naped lory, Kuhl's lorikeet, western ground parrot, etc.
Includes the very rare supplement to the Hummingbirds, Vol. 3, with 15 plates (1st edition, 1852)
All from the second edition of 1843 with duplicate title pages
Gallinaceous Birds, Sir William Jardine, 32 steel… Leer más