The English Entomologist, exhibiting All the Coleopterous Insects found in England; including upwards of 500 Different Species... arranged and named according to the Linnean System
London: Academy for Illustrating and Painting Natural History, 1792. First edition.
Royal quarto (13 1/4" x 10 3/4", 338mm x 274mm). With an engraved title page, 33, [5] pages, [2] uncolored engraved numismatic plates, and 41 (of 42) hand-colored soft-ground-etched plates of insects, heightened with gum arabic. Lacking plate no. 3 ("Scarabeus"), which is instead supplied in watercolor with caption and identification numbers in ink.
Bound in contemporary tree calf, gilt (rebacked to style by English bookbinder Trevor Lloyd). On the spine, six panels. Panels alternating gilt urns and gilt arabesques. Title gilt to green morocco in the second panel. On the edges of the boards, gilt rolls. Gilt guilloche inside dentelle. Marbled end-paper. All edges of the text-block gilt.
Rebacked. Fore-corners restored and a little bumped. With one plate supplied in watercolor. A lovely fresh copy. The armorial bookplate of John Rous, 1st Earl of Stradbroke (1750-1827) on the front paste-down. The armorial bookplate of F[rederick] Fermor-Hesketh, 2nd Lord Hesketh (1916-1955; from his sale, Sotheby's 15 December 1999, lot 318).
Martyn (son of John, also a significant Cambridge botanist) is perhaps best known for his Universal Conchologist. Turning thereafter to insects, Martyn produced his English Entomologist (1792).
Rous was one of the great Georgian horsemen, and perhaps had the book bound so very sumptuously. Hesketh (1916-1955) in turn collected a great many fine books, which were sold by his heirs in 1999 and again in 2010.
Nissen ZBI 2725.
Item #6JLR0061
Price: $6,500