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Details
JOHN GOULD (1804-1881)
The Birds of Great Britain. London: Taylor and Francis for the Author, [1862]-1873. 5 volumes, large 2 (552 x 373mm). 5pp. subscribers' list, 367 fine hand-coloured lithographic plates, most heightened with gum-arabic, by Gould, Henry Constantine Richter, Jospeh Wolf and William Hart, most lithographed by Richter and Hart, printed by Walter or Walter & Cohn, 2 wood-engraved illustrations. (Some spotting, text leaf for Tengmalm's Owl (vol. I) with vertical stain not affecting text but faintly off-setting onto adjacent plates, a few plates with small occasional stains.) Contemporary blue half morocco, spine in compartments with raised bands, gilt in four, lettered in two, top edge gilt (extremities rubbed, small chips to head and foot of spines, corners bumped).
FIRST EDITION. 'The most popular of all his works is always likely to be Birds of Great Britain' (Fine Bird Books p. 29). The text is more extensive and the illustrations depict many more chicks, nests, and eggs than in Gould's other works: 'there was an opportunity of greatly enriching the work by giving figures of the young of many of the species of various genera - a thing hitherto almost entirely neglected by authors' (Gould, writing in the preface to the present work). Wolf, who drew 57 of the plates and accompanied Gould on an ornithological tour of Scandinavia in 1856, was responsible for persuading Gould and Richter to adopt a livelier treatment of the subject matter. Fine Bird Books p. 78; Nissen IVB 372; Sauer 23; Wood p. 365; Zimmer p. 261. (5)
The Birds of Great Britain. London: Taylor and Francis for the Author, [1862]-1873. 5 volumes, large 2 (552 x 373mm). 5pp. subscribers' list, 367 fine hand-coloured lithographic plates, most heightened with gum-arabic, by Gould, Henry Constantine Richter, Jospeh Wolf and William Hart, most lithographed by Richter and Hart, printed by Walter or Walter & Cohn, 2 wood-engraved illustrations. (Some spotting, text leaf for Tengmalm's Owl (vol. I) with vertical stain not affecting text but faintly off-setting onto adjacent plates, a few plates with small occasional stains.) Contemporary blue half morocco, spine in compartments with raised bands, gilt in four, lettered in two, top edge gilt (extremities rubbed, small chips to head and foot of spines, corners bumped).
FIRST EDITION. 'The most popular of all his works is always likely to be Birds of Great Britain' (Fine Bird Books p. 29). The text is more extensive and the illustrations depict many more chicks, nests, and eggs than in Gould's other works: 'there was an opportunity of greatly enriching the work by giving figures of the young of many of the species of various genera - a thing hitherto almost entirely neglected by authors' (Gould, writing in the preface to the present work). Wolf, who drew 57 of the plates and accompanied Gould on an ornithological tour of Scandinavia in 1856, was responsible for persuading Gould and Richter to adopt a livelier treatment of the subject matter. Fine Bird Books p. 78; Nissen IVB 372; Sauer 23; Wood p. 365; Zimmer p. 261. (5)