JOHN GOULD (BRITISH, 1804-1881) BIRDS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 25 ORIGINAL PARTS

JOHN GOULD (BRITISH, 1804-1881)

The Birds of Great Britain.

5 volumes in the original 25 parts, 367 fine hand-coloured lithographic plates, most heightened with gum-arabic, drawn by Gould, Henry Constantine Richter, Joseph Wolf and William Hart, 2 wood-engraved illustrations, some signs of foxing, staining to Garrulus Glandarius [Jay] in part 1 and to Syrrhaptes Paradoxus [Pallas’s Sandgrouse] in part 4 as well as to adjacent text leaves, some soiling to plates and adhesion not affecting image and confined to margins, a few insignificant tears professionally and carefully repaired, original green cloth-backed printed boards, edges rubbed, a couple or parts more heavily soiled possibly with ink but not obscuring the printed titles, backstrips also professionally mostly repaired a few joints slightly cracked,[ Sauer 23; Zimmer p.261; Fine Bird Books (1990) p.102; Wood p.365; Nissen IVB 372], elephant folio, Taylor and Francis for the author, 1862-1873.

***'The most sumptuous and costly of British bird books' in the original parts. Gould was especially proud of this work, and it 'was seen - perhaps partly because its subject was British, as the culmination of [his] ... genius' (Isabella Tree, The Ruling Passion of John Gould, London: 1991, p.207. The text is more extensive, and the illustrations depict many more chicks, nests, and eggs, than in his other grand folios. "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" (preface).