Shaw (George) & Nodder (Frederick P.) The Naturalist's Miscellany, 24 vols., 1789 - 1813

Shaw (George) & Nodder (Frederick P.)

The Naturalist's Miscellany: or Coloured Figures of Natural Objects; Drawn and Described Immediately from Nature,

24 vols. bound in 12, 1064 engraved plates, all but a few hand-coloured or printed in colour, some folding, various watermarks, engraved dedication in vol. 1, Shaw’s tomb plate in vol. 24, each vol. with titles in Latin and English (lacking in vol. 22), general titles in vol. 1, general index at rear, vol. 24 without individual index, titles of vols. 1 - 3 with contemporary ink signatures, plate 203 with annotation, plates and text generally clean although some vols. with more browning / spotting or offsetting from text, text block trimmed with occasional loss to plate numbers and plate 993 with slight cropping to bottom edge of image, vol. 23 with stitch-holes to fore-edge, blindstamp of the Royal College of Art one every other title page, each vol. with presentation label from the Textile Council to the RCA to front pastedown, library cloth, 8vo, Nodder & Co., 1789 - 1813 (12)

***Issued in 287 monthly parts over almost 24 years, the work focuses particularly on ornithology. Shaw was the first to describe a number of animals in a scholarly manner, although for others he relied solely on second hand descriptions, whilst a few animals seem not to have existed at all.

[Fine Bird Books, p.42; Nissen IVB 869; Wood p.565.]