The Birds of Great Britain

Gould, John

Published by Taylor and Francis for the Author, London, 1862

About this Item

First edition. London: Taylor and Francis for the Author, 1862-1873. Five volumes. Folio (21 ¾" x 14 ¾", 553mm x 375mm). With 367 hand-colored lithographed plates, most heightened with gum arabic, after John Gould, Joseph Wolf, H.C. Richter and William Hart. Printed by Walter or Walter & Cohn. Two wood-engraved text illustrations, dedication leaf, 5-page list of subscribers. Bound in contemporary half green morocco over green cloth, with triple gilt fillets at the edges of the morocco. On the spine, 6 raised bands. Triple gilt fillets top-and-bottom in the panels. Title gilt to the second panel, number gilt to the fourth panel. Marbled endpapers. All edges of the text-block gilt. Some rubbing at the extremities. With light occasional spotting, chiefly marginal, to the text and a flew plates. Title-page of vol. IV starting. End-papers foxed. Altogether near fine. With the bookplate of the California Academy of Sciences to the front paste-down of each volume. Ownership signature of A. Hamel 1896 (?) to the verso of the first free end-paper of each volume. Gould's most popular of his large-format multi-volume ornithological works, with the greatest number of subscribers. Even more than in his inaugural set, the Birds of Europe (completed 1837), Gould's challenge was to circumvent the conception of British birds as ordinary or unremarkable. He had to bring the birds that circled overhead in front of his readers' eyes with freshness and striking beauty. The complexity of the scenes grew, with tableaux of nests, chicks and eggs joining the usual modes of depiction. Gould wrote in the Preface that he "felt that 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; and I feel assured that this infantile age of birdlife will be of much interest." The text is longer than in any of his other works, and many of the illustrations were prepared from freshly-killed specimens. Wolf, who drew 57 of the plates, and was responsible for persuading Gould and Richter to adopt a livelier treatment of the illustrations. Ayer/Zimmer p. 261, Fine Bird Books p. 102, Mullens & Swann p. 242; Nissen IVB 372, Sauer 23, Wood p. 365. Seller Inventory # 6JLR0007

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Birds of Great Britain

Publisher: Taylor and Francis for the Author, London

Publication Date: 1862

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Near fine

Edition: First.