A Series of Engravings representing the Bones of the Human Skeleton by John Barclay - 1824: with the Skeletons of some of the Lower Animals

Good copy of Barclay's scarce book of anatomy with 36 fine copperplate engravings and descriptive text

New edition in quarto size after the first folio-size edition published 1819-1820. A third edition was published in 1829 by Barclay's partner Robert Knox who famously purchased cadavers from the grave-robbers turned serial killers Burke and Hare.

With an engraved portrait of the author, title page, 7-page preface, and 36 engravings, each with several pages of descriptive text.

Most of the plates were engraved based on previous works: Bernhard Siegfried Albinus for the human skeletons, George Stubbs for the horse skeletons, Jean-Joseph Sue for the individual bones and child skeletons.

The last three unnumbered plates by Robert Kaye Greville from specimens in Dr. Barclay's Museum are a prospectus for a work on vertebrate skeletons which engraver Edward Mitchell intended to publish. They include a striking image of an elephant skeleton ridden by a skeletal mahout!

John Barclay (1758-1826), was one of the most distinguished teachers of anatomy in Edinburgh during the first decades of the 19th century. He taught mostly at his private anatomy school from 1797 until 1825.

Edward Mitchell (fl. 1787-1845) was an engraver based in Edinburgh. In addition to this book, he also engraved Patrick Syme's Drawing Book of Flowers and Fruit (1810), Sketches after Anthony Van Dyck (1815), Alexander Kay's portraits of Scottish peasants (1820s), and many book illustrations.

Brown cloth library binding, gilt leather title label on spine, new endpapers, faint stamps of Birmingham Medical Library on all plates, portrait and title page heavily stained and browned, repaired in gutter with Japanese paper, some browning, offsetting and spotting to plates and text pages.