1766, ISBN: 05b07c116fc9cd16211efb5deb81917a

[PU: For the Author and with great Additions for J. Robson 1778], ANTIQUARIAN 10 NATURAL HISTORY, English and French titles, and text in English and French in double-columns, English titl… More...

[PU: For the Author and with great Additions for J. Robson 1778], ANTIQUARIAN 10 NATURAL HISTORY, English and French titles, and text in English and French in double-columns, English title with engraved vignette, frontispiece, hand-coloured engraved diagrammatic key-plate and 44 plates numbered I-XLIV, by and after Harris, Plate I inscribed by the author/artist ‘Colour’d by me Mr. Harris Sept. 1778’, indicating that the plates were coloured by the author throughout (as opposed to an employed colourist), occasional very light spotting and offsetting, several leaves and plates with tears in the lower margins, not affecting text or image, ff. [iii, twin titles and Table], pp. [iv-] xv, 90, folio, nineteenth-century half brown morocco, pinkish pebble-grained cloth sides, spine gilt and blind tooled on either side of the raised bands, lettered direct, top edges gilt, front inner hinge cracked at top and bottom, extremities rubbed, very slight warping of the boards, good Second edition, second issue. A good, fresh, tall copy of this beautiful and famous book by ‘one of the most outstanding authors of entomological literature during the eighteenth century’ (Lisney). Harris drew from live specimens and his plates are amongst the most beautiful of their kind, showing dorsal and ventral views of all the subjects, together with various stages of development (egg, caterpillar, chrysalis), each with their preferred food. First published in 1766, the Aurelian went through many editions. This has led to a complex bibliography, and, as Lisney notes, it ‘frequently occur[s] as made-up copies’. In this copy, Plate I is without the dedication, plate II is not mounted and appears on matching length paper, and the text and plates are on undated Whatman laid paper. ‘Moses Harris did much to encourage entomology at a time when the original dynamism of the age of Ray and the first Aurelian Society was waning. He was probably the prime mover in founding the second Aurelian Society . and in the unsurpassed plates of The Aurelian he left a timeless classic to future generations’ (see Salmon, The Aurelian Legacy (2000) pp.115-17). (BM(NH) II, p.788; Lisney 232; Nissen ZBI 1835; ESTC N21994)<

1766, ISBN: 05b07c116fc9cd16211efb5deb81917a

Hardcover

[PU: For the Author and with great Additions for J. Robson 1778], ANTIQUARIAN 10 NATURAL HISTORY, English and French titles, and text in English and French in double-columns, English titl… More...

[PU: For the Author and with great Additions for J. Robson 1778], ANTIQUARIAN 10 NATURAL HISTORY, English and French titles, and text in English and French in double-columns, English title with engraved vignette, frontispiece, hand-coloured engraved diagrammatic key-plate and 44 plates numbered I-XLIV, by and after Harris, Plate I inscribed by the author/artist ‘Colour’d by me Mr. Harris Sept. 1778’, indicating that the plates were coloured by the author throughout (as opposed to an employed colourist), occasional very light spotting and offsetting, several leaves and plates with tears in the lower margins, not affecting text or image, ff. [iii, twin titles and Table], pp. [iv-] xv, 90, folio, nineteenth-century half brown morocco, pinkish pebble-grained cloth sides, spine gilt and blind tooled on either side of the raised bands, lettered direct, top edges gilt, front inner hinge cracked at top and bottom, extremities rubbed, very slight warping of the boards, good Second edition, second issue. A good, fresh, tall copy of this beautiful and famous book by ‘one of the most outstanding authors of entomological literature during the eighteenth century’ (Lisney). Harris drew from live specimens and his plates are amongst the most beautiful of their kind, showing dorsal and ventral views of all the subjects, together with various stages of development (egg, caterpillar, chrysalis), each with their preferred food. First published in 1766, the Aurelian went through many editions. This has led to a complex bibliography, and, as Lisney notes, it ‘frequently occur[s] as made-up copies’. In this copy, Plate I is without the dedication, plate II is not mounted and appears on matching length paper, and the text and plates are on undated Whatman laid paper. ‘Moses Harris did much to encourage entomology at a time when the original dynamism of the age of Ray and the first Aurelian Society was waning. He was probably the prime mover in founding the second Aurelian Society . and in the unsurpassed plates of The Aurelian he left a timeless classic to future generations’ (see Salmon, The Aurelian Legacy (2000) pp.115-17). (BM(NH) II, p.788; Lisney 232; Nissen ZBI 1835; ESTC N21994)<