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Books > Ornithology (44 items)
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 SHARPE, Richard Bowdler (1847-1909)
Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise and Ptilonorhynchidae, and Bower-Birds
London: Taylor & Francis for Henry Sotheran & Co, 1891-98. 2 volumes in 8 original parts, large folio (22 3/16 x 15 1/16 inches). Smaller format letterpress "Notice to Subscribers" tipped in at front of part VI, smaller format "Completion of the work" notice from the publishers tipped in at front of part VIII. 79 fine hand-coloured lithographic plates by William Mathew Hart, after his own drawings (52) and John Gould (20) or John Gerrard Keulemans (7), 13 uncoloured illustrations. Original pictorial grey paper-covered boards, dark blue cloth spines, the upper cover of each part with the letterpress title beneath a large wood-engraved title vignette, the eight parts contained in two dark green morocco-backed cloth boxes, the spines in six compartments with raised bands, lettered in the second and third compartments, the others with repeat decoration in gilt made up from various small tools.
A very fine copy of this, the "last of the fine bird books" (Fine Bird Books p.107). This copy, in original parts, with the best colouring of any copy that we have handled in past thirty five years.
Gould had intended to publish a complete monograph of the birds of paradise following completion of his Birds of New Guinea, but he did not live to do so. When Sharpe took over the task of completing that work, he appealed for subscribers for the proposed monograph. The response was clearly enthusiastic as within three years the first part of the present work was published. Some of the plates had previously appeared in Gould's Birds of New Guinea as "Messrs. Sotheran purchased the stock of Gould's works after his death [and] acquired the stones with which he had intended to illustrate his Monograph... Many of them were broken or otherwise damaged, and of these some have been redrawn or replaced by new plates by Mr. Hart. Since Gould's time, however, many marvelous new species have been discovered, and these have been described and figured in the present work" (Appendix). As the small format slip in part six makes clear, the timing of the publication of the work could not have been better, as so many beautiful new species were discovered whilst the work was in preparation that Sharpe felt justified in extending the size of the work from six to eight parts.
A great many copies of this work were issued at a later date with inferior hand-colouring. The quality of the colouring of the plates in the present copy is outstanding, and it is only with examples of this work in the original parts that the colouring can be guaranteed to be contemporary with the original publication dates. Copies such as the present example are very rare: only three are listed as having sold at auction in the past thirty years.
Fine Bird Books (1990) p.107; Nissen IVB 581; Ripley 263; Wood, p.565; Zimmer, p.581.
#15874 $95,000.00  
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 SHARPE, Richard Bowdler (1847-1909)
Scientific Results of the Second Yarkand Mission; based upon the collections and notes by the late Ferdinand Stoliczka ... Aves.
London: published by order of the Government of India, printed by Taylor and Francis, 1891. Folio (14 1/2 x 10 7/8 inches). 24 hand-coloured lithographed plates, by J. Smit (2), J.G. Keulemans (15), W. Hart (3) and one other, printed by Hanhart, each mounted on a guard, 1 folding zincographed map, hand-coloured in outline. Original grey/green paper upper wrapper, letterpress titling to the upper wrapper, the lower wrapper supplied with near uniform paper (neat repairs to the upper cover and spine). Housed in a green morocco backed folding box. Provenance: J.E. Gordon (early signature on the title).
The complete ornithological section of the official scientific results of an important government-supported expedition in India.
The complete report in 14 parts was published between 1878-1891 and served as part of the official justification for what essentially had been a move in the "Great Game." In 1873, the second Yarkand mission under Sir Douglas Forsyth was sent by Lord Northbrook, Viceroy of India, to cement British and Indian relations with Yakub Beg, the ruler of Chinese Turkestan and an important figure in the buffer region between Russia and India. The mission was well-equipped, as befitted an official government attempt to impress a local ruler and it is said that the Ladakh economy took four years to recover from the losses incurred from the passage of the expedition. The mission set out from Rawalpindi to Leh via Murree, travelled past the Pangong Lake, Changchenmo and Karakash Valley onto Shahidulla and finally to Yarkand. They reached Kashgar in December 1873, and on March 17, 1874 began the return journey. They were to visit the Pamir and Afghanistan areas but the political situation prohibited the passage and the party returned to India via Ladakh.
Ferdinand Stoliczka, the mission's geologist and naturalist, made good use of the opportunities offered and made extensive observations. Unfortunately, he died before he was able to publish any of his work. His papers and notes were edited by various well-known scientists, with the present ornithological section being completed by Sharpe.
The plates, all worked up from skins collected by Stoliczka, are produced by three of the greatest ornithological artists of the late-19th century. Two already had an extensive back-catalogue: Joseph Smit (1836-1929) "the best animal painter in [Great Britain]" (Christine Jackson) had worked with Josef Wolf on two of G.D. Elliot's monographs and William Hart had been employed almost full-time by John Gould. John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912) was a Dutch-born artist and a relative newcomer, who went on to become a mainstay of British ornithological illustration for two decades at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th-century. Christine Jackson writes that as "an ornithological draughtsman ... [Keulemans] was outstanding ... Such a large proportion of the birds drawn by Keulemans were done from [stuffed] specimens that it is truly amazing that he could make the birds in his plates look life-like at all. He understood the anatomy of birds, also he was a keen bird-watcher, and these considerations obviously saved him from producing mere bird-contours in his drawings."
Anker 465; Fine Bird Books (1990) p. 142; Nissen IVB 861; Christine Jackson Bird Illustrators some artists in early lithography (1975) pp.75-92;
#23863$7,250.00
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 VIEILLOT, Louis Jean Pierre (1748-1831)
Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de l'Amérique septentrionale, contenant un grand nombre d'espèces decrites ou figurées pour la première fois
Paris: chez Desray, 1807-[1808]. 2 volumes, folio (21 5/8 x 13 1/2 inches). Uncut. 131 etched plates after J.-G. Pretre by L. Bouquet, printed in colors by Langlois and finished by hand, extra-illustrated with a double-page engraved map of 'L'Amerique Septentrionale' (as usual, plate number 42 from an 'Atlas Universel'). Contemporary red morocco,covers with border of gilt fillets and a dog-tooth roll, spines in six compartments with double-raised bands, the bands highlighted with gilt tooling and the space between each pair of bands with a narrow onlay of black morocco, lettered in gilt on labels in the second and third compartments, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers (some discoloration to leather). Provenance: Samuel Jones-Loyd, 1st Baron Overstone (1796 - 1883, armorial bookplate); Robert James Lindsay (1832-1901, Baron Wantage of Lockinge, VC, KCB, FRS, circular armorial book-label).
A fine uncut wide-margined copy of the first edition of this classic of American ornithology.
The work contains descriptions of many North American birds, some of which predate those of Alexander Wilson. Vieillot, along with Wilson, was a pioneer in a new kind of ornithology in which birds were no longer assessed as specimens and skins but studied as living organisms within their environment. "Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot was one of the more discerning ornithologists who gave particular study to female, immature and seasonal plumages" (Allen). The plates bear all the hallmarks of the great French natural history books of the first two decades of the 19th century: the plates are individual works of art, whilst also being scientifically-accurate pictorial documents of the highest order: they are, invariably, carefully observed and beautifully printed.
Robert James Lindsay (1832-1901), Baron Wantage of Lockinge, VC, KCB, FRS, was second son of Lieut-General Hon. James Lindsay and Anne, daughter of Sir Coutts Trotter, Bart. In 1858, he married Harriet Sarah Loyd, the only child and heiress of Samuel Jones-Loyd, 1st Baron Overstone (25 September 1796 - 1883) a British banker and politician. Lord Overstone, one of the richest men in the country, endowed the couple with a considerable fortune and the Lockinge estate near Wantage, Berkshire.
Allen 549-552; Anker 515; Fine Bird Books p.112; Nissen IVB 957; Ronsil 3030; Yale/Ripley p.300; Zimmer p.654
#20257$60,000.00
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 WILSON, Alexander (1766-1813)
American Ornithology; or the Natural History of the Birds of the United States. Illustrated with plates engraved and coloured from original drawings taken from nature
New York & Philadelphia: Collins & Co. and Harrison Hall, 1828-1829. 4 volumes (Text: 3 vols., quarto [10 9/16 x 8 3/8 inches]; atlas of plates: 1 vol., folio [15 1/2 x 12 inches]). Text: Uncut, 4pp. subscribers' list at rear of vol.III. Atlas: letterpress title, otherwise engraved throughout. 76 hand-coloured engraved plates, heightened with gum arabic, by A. Lawson (52), J.G. Warnicke (21), G. Murray (2), and B. Tanner (1), all after Wilson. Text: expertly bound to style in half red straight-grained morocco over contemporary marbled paper-covered boards, the flat spines with title lettered in gilt and a small decorative gilt oval containing the volume number; atlas: expertly bound to style in half red straight-grained morocco over contemporary marbled paper-covered boards, the flat spines with title lettered in gilt and a small decorative gilt oval containing the word 'Plates'. Provenance: Philip Hone (1780-1851, subscriber, clipped signature, bookplates).
An original subscriber's copy: the Philip Hone copy of the second full edition of Wilson's work, with the very rare, apparently unrecorded, large paper issue of the text (here entirely untrimmed). This is the most important work on American ornithology before Audubon.
None of the bibliographies that we have consulted mention a "large paper" edition of the 1828-29 American Ornithology, the text of this set is on demonstrably larger paper than the usual 'octavo' copies that we have examined.
The first edition of Wilson's life-work was published in nine volumes between 1808 and 1814. The present edition was prepared by Wilson's friend and colleague, George Ord, who improved the work textually by re-arranging the work in a systematic order by species and by contributing an important "Sketch of the Author's Life" (pp.vii-cxcix in the first text volume) as well as numerous additional textual notes. He also notes in his preface to the first text volume that he arranged for the plates to be "carefully examined and retouched" by Alexander Lawson (the original engraver of most of the plates). Reading between the lines of Ord's preface, it is clear that he believed the plates in the present edition to be better than the first, and this is the current general view: it is noted in Fine Bird Books that "the plates [are] coloured better," and Wood writes: "The hand-colored drawings in the atlas are from the original copper plates, colored anew by pigments which seem to have been better quality than those used by Wilson." In addition to the coloring, better quality paper was used in this edition, thus avoiding the foxing which almost inevitably mars the first. Thus, this edition is more desirable than the first.
Philip Hone, an original subscriber, is now best known for the detailed diary that he kept from 1828 onwards. He made his fortune through the auction business, and was elected Mayor of New York City in 1826, but served only one term. He became a man of great prominence in New York society, for his wealth, sophistication, extensive travel and good taste, and was good friends with most of the political, artistic and scientific leaders of his day.
BM (NH), p.2332; Fine Bird Books (1990) p. 155; Nissen IVB 992; cf. Sabin 104598; Wood p.630
#22744$32,500.00
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Copyright © 2002-2010 Donald A. Heald
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