The aquarium: an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea. . . [Edition without plates].

London: John Van Voorst, 1856. 8vo. xv, [1], 304 pp., plus 6 pp. publisher’s ads. With 8 lithograph plates as issued. Green-blue publisher’s cloth, embossed ruling in blind on covers, gilt lettering on spine, a.e.g. (very minor shelfwear, slight rubbing, very slight bumping to couple corners), still a NF bright copy, w/ ownership markings of S.F. Mason, Upper Southfields, Leicester on verso of ffep., bookseller’s tick for James Vice, Engraver, Printer, Leicester on front pastedown. Second edition, revised & expanded of what many consider to be the first monograph on building and keeping saltwater aquariums. Gosse (1810-1888) substantially revised his very popular work on the aquarium for this edition, including a much fuller description of how to set-up and maintain the parlor aquarium, as well as adding a number of practical discoveries he had made during the two years since the original edition was published. This present edition was the variant edition issued without colour plates by Van Voorst at reduced cost from the 17 Shilling price of the issue with colour chromolithographs. Of particular interest is the advertisement at the end promoting Marine Natural History Classes organized by Gosse beginning in 1855 on the North Devon Coast, in which for a fee he would instruct aspiring Victorian men and women naturalists on how to collect specimens and maintain their aquariums at home. See: Freeman & Wertheimer, Gosse, 62; Edmund Gosse, The life of Philip Henry Gosse (1890); The Aquatic Vivarium at the Zoological Gardens, Illustrated London News, 1853.