L'Arche De Noé: Histoire Naturelle Des Animaux, Destinée Au Jeune Age -

Paris: Louis Janet, 1820. Sixteen volumes bound in four. 32pp. each. Sixteen hand-colored engravings, each as an introduction to the succeeding text. The illustrations hail the creatures with appropriate familiarity or exoticism, showing the turkey with the cockatoo, the hyena with the kangaroo, and the dog with the boar. The descriptions of the animals are as anecdotal as they are statistical, with exposition on the temperaments and common uses of animals as well as their habitats and physical characteristics. The final volume concludes with an index. Original printed paper boards show some wear and soiling to spines, else a fine set, housed in box covered in decorative papers showing an appropriate array of monkeys and birds. (Welch 283; Gumuchian 364). (Each volume measures 3 1/4 by 2 1/8; 80x55mm).