A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers [1868] by Thoreau, Henry D - 1868

London: Rowland Ward, Limited, 1908. First Edition . Cloth - Hard Cover. Very Good/No Jacket. 115 pages. Blue cloth with gilt stamped lettering and photograph in-lay. Top edge is gilded. Covers show just a hint of rubbing, and remain bright and clean. Book plate of J. H. Bullard on front paste down, and his inked name with the date of 1922 is seen on the first blank page following free end page. Small book seller's decal at bottom of front free end page, and light rubbing/scuffs can be seen on the same page. Volume remains tight and is otherwise bright and clean. A lovely copy of this scarce title.

Amsterdam: Chez l'honore et fils, libraires, 1748. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. 2 vols. in one. 8vo. I: [10], cxix, [7], 208 pp. + 1 f. ("Errata" for Tom. 1). II: [2], 231 pp. + 1 f. ("Addition") + 1 f. ("Errata" for Tom 1 [sic]). First title page with unobtrusive paper defect on lower margin, not affecting text; this copy is lacking half-title and Errata leaf for Tom. 2. Very attractive 19th-century French red glazed boards, red morocco spine, lettered in gilt directly (two insignificant worm-holes on lower hinge, leading nowhere; trifle wear to binding extremities. Completely unsophisticated. First printing of "Telliamed," in every way a remarkable book. Disguised as an Oriental fantasy, it contains perhaps the earliest appearance of one of the most important of all evolution speculations, namely the so-called ultra-neptunian theory: that the entire Earth was, and is, a marine deposit, and that all life on land originated from creatures of the sea. Maillet hypothesized that the earth was… Read More

Quarto (12 by 8 1/4 inches) London: "Printed by Joseph Streater, and are to be Sold by T. Basset, at the George in Fleet-Street. J Robinson, at the Golden Lyon in St. Paul's Church-Yard. B. Ayimer, at the Three Pigeons over against the Royal-Exchange. Job. Southby at the Harrow in Cornhil. And by W. Canning, in the Temple." 1688. (16) 267 (12) & (3) 40 pages.

TWO works bound together, as published, in original full mottled calf, with raised bands and gilt ornaments on spine.
Good condition, with some chipping along outside hinges, but holding; and normal wear to corners. Title page of first part printed in red and black. Lower right corner of title page to second part torn and missing, but not affecting text; and minor old insect damage to lower portion of same; date and other particulars still very readable. Engraved bookplate of Henry Maister (of an early English mercantile family).

There are thirty-one full page engravings of animals in the first part; and five full page engravings of scientific… Read More

Black Sicklebill, Epimachus fastuosus (formerly great sickle-billed bird of paradise, Epimachus speciosus).Original hand-coloured lithograph by William Matthew Hart for Richard Bowdler Sharpe's Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower-birds. London, 1891-1898.
One of the most beautiful bird illustrations ever produced from the last of the great ornithological books of the 19th century.
William Matthew Hart (1830-1908) was a bird illustrator and lithographer who worked for John Gould from 1851. He began by making the patterns for the lithographic plates for Gould's monograph on Hummingbirds, as well as working on The Birds of Great Britain with Henry Constantine Richter. By 1870 Hart had become Gould's chief artist and lithographer. After Gould's death in 1881, Hart was employed by Richard Bowdler-Sharpe of the British Museum to complete Gould's work on the Birds of New Guinea and to produce illustrations for Sharpe's great work Monograph on the Birds of… Read More

Complete set of the 53 copperplate engravings only from this seminal work of microscopy by Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680), the pioneering Dutch biologist. Swammerdam was one of the outstanding comparative anatomists of the seventeenth century. His most remarkable work was in the field of insect anatomy, which he undertook in order to disprove Aristotle's claims that insects lack internal anatomy, develop by metamorphosis and arise from spontaneous generation. By refining his techniques of micro-dissection and injection, Swammerdam was able to illustrate for the first time the complex internal structures of insects, including their reproductive organs.These observations are "indubitably the foundation of our modern knowledge of the structure, metamorphosis and classification of insects" (Cole, p. 285).Biblia naturae, Swammerdam's major work, was published 57 years after his death by Herman Boerhaave, who assembled it from unpublished manuscript materials integrated with a slightly revised version of… Read More

London. T. Nelson and Sons. 1864. Bound in gilt ruled black calfskin. Gilt ruled spine compartments with elaborate gilt tooled motifs. Gilt ruled raised bands. Gilt tooled edges. Gilt titles. a.e.g. 12mo. Wonderfully illustrated throughout with full page chromolithographic plates by the author. The mildest of scuffing to covers. Corners extremely mildly rubbed. Very mild usual offset to prelims, else a Near Fine, crisp copy. Very rare.

London: Academy for Illustrating and Painting Natural History, 1792. Book. Very good+ condition. Hardcover. First Edition. Folio. Two title pages, four unnumbered pages, 33 pages of text in English interspersed with plates, four unnumbered pages of text in French, 41 pages of text in French, followed by four unnumbered pages containing the General Table [index] in English. Measures 36cm (height). New tan linen (hardcover) binding rebound by Corey, with an elegant dark brown leather spine label with gilt title mostly covering the spine. Illustrated with two engraved title pages, two unnumbered numismatic plates titled "Aurea numismata", and 42 numbered entomological plates, of which the first nine are hand-colored. Plates 11 and 28 are bound-in out of sequence. English text followed by French; English title page; author English professor of botany, Cambridge; plates produced by Martyn's Academy for Drawing and Printing Natural History, Great Marlborough Street, London. Knight, page 9.… Read More

Title, xxviii, 329 p.; xii, 373, 10 folding plates.
First French edition, greatly expanded from the 1767 edition. Fontana's extensive research on snake venom is considered the beginning of modern toxicology."A contribution to comparative zoology by one of the foremost anatomists of the eighteenth century" - Wood. p. 344

London: Printed by A Linde, Bookseller to Her Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales, 1755 A good copy of the first (and only) English edition in largely contemporary full leather binding with folding engraved map coloured in outline, and 28 plates. In 2 parts - the second part published over a year after the first as writing was disrupted by a major fire. The binding is complete and sound, with contemporary boards (scuffed) and later spine and corners. The spine has small raised bands and gilt titles. There is rubbing to spine joints. Internally a number of old catalogue entries about the work have been pasted to the front pastedown endpaper. Contents: folding map, title, preface, author list & contents xiv; text 206pp with 14 plates; title Pt 2, author's preface, contents viii; text 291pp with 14 plates - finis; directions to binder, index and errata xii. The map is in good clean condition with some staining at the bottom and side margins. There are 2 paper flaw holes in the top margin p 1/2,… Read More

Isaacson's puffleg or long-billed puff-leg hummingbird, Eriocnemis isaacsoni.Now classified as a hybrid species, Eriocnemis sp. x Helianthea sp.Fine handcoloured lithograph by John Gould and Henry Richter from John Gould's famous Monograph of the Trochilidae, or Family of Hummingbirds, London, Volume IV, 1861. Henry Constantine Richter (1821-1902) was an English zoological illustrator who produced a large number of handcoloured lithographs of birds and mammals, mainly for the scientific books of the renowned English 19th century ornithologist John Gould. Gould was fascinated by hummingbirds and exhibited his extensive collection of 100s of these tiny birds in taxidermy cases at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. The print (51cm x 34cm) is in very good condition, with very slight age toning overall, mounted in a cream-coloured French matt (71cm x 54cm).