The Birds of Great Britain by GOULD, John (1804-1881) - 1873

London: Taylor and Francis for the Author, 1873. 5 volumes, large folio. (21 1/2 x 15 inches). 5pp. list of subscribers. 367 hand-coloured lithographic plates, many heightened with gum arabic, after Gould, Henry Constantine Richter, Joseph Wolf and William Hart, most lithographed by Richter and Hart, printed by Walter or Walter & Cohn, 2 wood-engraved illustrations. Minor foxing to text, generally in the front of each vol. and not affecting plates. Early dark green half morocco and green cloth covered boards, spines with raised bands in six compartments, tooled on and on either side of each band, lettered in gilt in the second and fourth compartments. The first edition of the work of which Gould was most proud, here with a first issue of the Snowy Owl plate. This work is "the most sumptuous and costly of British bird books" (Mullens and Swann) and is described by Wood as "a magnificent work." Gould was most proud of this work, and it "was seen - perhaps partly because its subject was British, as the culmination of [his] ... genius" (Isabella Tree, The Ruling Passion of John Gould. London: 1991, p.207). The text is more extensive and the illustrations depict many more chicks, nests, and eggs than in Gould's other works: "there was an opportunity of greatly enriching the work by giving figures of the young of many of the species of various genera - a thing hitherto almost entirely neglected by authors" (Gould, writing in the preface to the present work). Wolf, who drew 57 of the plates and accompanied Gould on an ornithological tour of Scandinavia in 1856, was responsible for persuading Gould and Richter to adopt a livelier treatment of the subject matter. The work was issued in twenty-five parts and was very well received. Gould's illustrations were all painstakingly coloured by hand, as he states in his Preface: "Many of the public are quite unaware how the colouring of these large plates is accomplished; and not a few believe that they are produced by some mechanical process or by chromo-lithography. This, however, is not the case; every sky with its varied tints and every feather of each bird were coloured by hand; and when it is considered that nearly two hundred and eighty thousand illustrations in the present work have been so treated, it will most likely cause some astonishment to those who give the subject a thought." The stone from which the Snowy Owl plate (in vol.I) was printed was dropped and broken at an early stage in the printing. Later issues of this plate show evidence of this and the early issue - printed before the accident - are considered more desirable. Fine Bird Books (1990) p.102; Nissen IVB 372; Sauer 23; Wood p.365; Zimmer p.261.