The Natural History of Oxfordshire by Plot, Robert [R. P. LLD.] - 1677

First edition. Printed at the Theater in Oxford, and are to be had there: And in London at Mr. S. Millers, at the Star near the West End of St. Pauls Church-yard. 1677. The price in sheets at the Press, nine shillings. To Subscribers, eight shillings. Folio. Imprim. April 13, 1676; Title, with engraved vignette; (7)pp Dedication, with engraved headpiece and historiated initial; 358pp; (1)errata; 10pp index. 15 engraved plates by Michael Burghers. Contemporary leather, worn, lacking spine strip. Boards still attached by threads. First gathering (Title and Dedication) disbound. N2 loose. Ffep and imprim crumpled at top inner corner. Some fraying to protruding edges. Discolouration to margins of title page and endpapers. Occasional marks and toning. Ink marks to upper margin of first page. Lacks the map and Tab. 3.

Signature of John Hobart to title page.

"Robert Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire, first published in 1677, included the first known illustration of a dinosaur bone, [Plate 8] thought by Plot to be the bone of a giant. "If then they are neither the Bones of Horses, Oxen, nor Elephants, as I am strongly persuaded they are not … It remains, that (notwithstanding their extravagant Magnitude) they must have been the bones of Men or Women: Nor doth any thing hinder but they may have been so, provided it be clearly made out, that there have been Men and Women of proportionable Stature in all Ages of the World, down even to our own Days". The influence of the book was immediate and far-reaching. Not only was its author ever after referred to as the "learned Dr Plot", but it may well also have confirmed Elias Ashmole in the belief that Oxford was the heaven-appointed place for his collection, and persuaded the University authorities both to accept the collection and to provide a fine building in which to house it." Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

English short title catalogue R7620;

Wing P2586; Madan, F. Oxford books, 3130.