Details
TOPSELL, Edward (1572-1625). The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes ... collected out of all the volumes of Conradus Gesner. London: William Jaggard, 1607.
2° (305 x 215mm). Woodcut on title and 133 illustrations in the text. (B6 torn and crudely repaired, woodcut illustration on K2v shaved at fore-margin, top margins cut close affecting several headlines, a few minor repairs, some staining and light discolouration). 19th-century vellum gilt, green title-label on spine, gilt supralibros of the Pemberton family on sides, gilt edges (a little soiled and spotted). Provenance: R. Morgan (late 17th-century deleted signature on title) -- F. Rudston Read (19th-century signature on title) -- Richard K. Pemberton (bookplate).
FIRST EDITION, issue with the gorgon on title. This is the first of Topsell's two translations from Gesner's Historiae animalium (the second was The Historie of Serpents, 1608), dedicated to Richard Neile, Dean of Westminster. Both books derive almost entirely from Gesner's works of some fifty years earlier, and even the quaint and grotesque illustrations are exact copies of those used by Gesner. The first word of the title is xylographic. Nissen ZBI 4145; Wood p. 599; STC 24123.
2° (305 x 215mm). Woodcut on title and 133 illustrations in the text. (B6 torn and crudely repaired, woodcut illustration on K2
FIRST EDITION, issue with the gorgon on title. This is the first of Topsell's two translations from Gesner's Historiae animalium (the second was The Historie of Serpents, 1608), dedicated to Richard Neile, Dean of Westminster. Both books derive almost entirely from Gesner's works of some fifty years earlier, and even the quaint and grotesque illustrations are exact copies of those used by Gesner. The first word of the title is xylographic. Nissen ZBI 4145; Wood p. 599; STC 24123.
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