Reptiles And Birds: A Popular Account Of The Various Orders; with a description of the Habits and Economy of the Most Interesting

Louis Figuier

Published by Casell, Petter, And Galpin, London, 1872

About this Item

307 Illustrations. The book is undated. The Preface is dated December, 1869. On the second blank front end paper a previous owner penciled 'published 1869, pages 572 to 648 on 'birds of prey.' Down a little way on the same page there is an old inscription: 'John S. Irwin (that's a guess) from Rose, April 4th 1872.' So we know that the book was published no later than that date, sometime before that date. To my eye, the covers look original. They have very little soiling, a few very small spots on the spine. The gilt lettering and design on the spine is still fairly bright and not worn. There is light wear at the top edge of the spine with one tiny tear and a little fraying. The bottom edge of the spine has a little more wear including a small loss. The maroon color of the front and rear has been altered, presumably by exposure to sunlight. The top page edge looks as if it was originally stained perhaps black. A little of that coloring is gone. There's also a very small space that can be seen on the top page edge. When you open up the book, a few of the pages that align with that small space have slight creasing just off their top edge, one has a tiny sliver of loss and one has detached from its top binding. It looks like there are five bindings between the pages. Prior to this page there is a six page gathering that is still bound to four of the five bindings but not terribly securely. The dark mustard-colored first front end paper along with the second blank end paper and the half-title page have detached, but are solidly attached to one another. The binding of this 648 page book is otherwise pretty solid. The great majority of pages are tightly bound. Both covers are tightly bound. The book is also square and the spine is straight. The six cover edges are in very good shape, no rubbing. The corners look a lot better than one would expect. The front bottom one has a spot of rub-through and the front top one has spot of light rubbing. There is a smooth and small square shape with a little darkening within it on the front inside cover. It looks like a book plate may have come loose or been removed. There's no residue of paper or anything like that. Nothing was ever attached on the rear inside cover and there are no attachments anywhere in the book. Beside the aforementioned writing, a previous owner penned 'Purchased July 30, 1968 in Chicago, Ill. at Acme Book Store at ___ price of $5.25.' And there are a couple of penciled x's off the top edge of the rear end paper. I didn't see any writing at all within the text. All of the illustrations are in black-and-white. There is also a full-page frontispiece illustration titled Hawking In The Middle Ages. It's in very good shape. The title page is in red and black. The pages are in quite decent condition. Scrolling through I'm not finding any soiling. There is some crinkling here and there but I'm not seeing any corner creases, no placeholder creases. Actually, it's a good bet that this book was not much used. We can surmise that from the fact that there are MANY UNCUT PAGES, definitely more uncut than cut. One of the ones that was cut (page 9-10) left a piece of itself, just off the top edge on the following page. No print was impacted. There are no markings of any kind in the book. There are few spots of foxing on the blank verso of the frontispiece, a few inconspicuous ones on one white side margin of the frontispiece, the inside one. I didn't see any foxing anywhere else in the book. Seller Inventory # 004565

Bibliographic Details

Title: Reptiles And Birds: A Popular Account Of The...

Publisher: Casell, Petter, And Galpin, London

Publication Date: 1872

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Good Plus