Birds of the sea shore illustrated
London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (published under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education), [1858]. Second edition?
Sexagesimo (16mo; 5 1/16” x 3 11/16”, 129mm x 94mm): 13 leaves, pp. [26] (title, blank; 12pp. text to the plates printed verso only). With 12 chromolithographed plates on celadon-tinted card, heightened with gum arabic.
Bound in the publisher’s green cloth, with the title pictorial gilt to the front board. All edges of the text-block gilt.
Front board and spine sunned. External traces of damp. Internally quite clean. Ownership signature of Jane Anne Broke to the front paste-down.
As Britons in the Victorian era took to holiday-making, a market arose for pocket guide-books to what they might find. With the rise of railways and the broader acceptance of sea-bathing (i.e., swimming in the ocean) for all sexes, exploration of Britain’s coasts gave rise to great resorts at Margate, Blackpool, Llandudno and elsewhere. At the same time, bird-watching rose as a quasi-scientific pursuit of the middle classes. This, then, is the immediate context of the present item. The dozen plates are accompanied by explanatory text with the common as well as the scientific names (often genus only, which is perhaps more intellectually honest).
The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) was founded in 1698, making it the oldest non-academic press in Britain. Its principal mission is the celebration of Anglicanism, but its publishing activities have always been much wider, including history, art history, poetry, science and natural history. The printer of the chromolithographs is not given, but the present volume is a fairly early example of the technique’s commercial deployment.
Lady Jane Anne de Saumarez (1853–1933), née Jane Anne Vere(-Broke) was perhaps the perfect owner for the book. Daughter of a naval officer who married James St Vincent Saumarez, 4th Baron de Saumarez (in 1882, giving a tentative terminus ante quem for her ownership), Lady de Saumarez was an heiress (i.e., a property-owner in her own right), inheriting among other homes Shrubland Hall in Sussex. Saumarez Park is the largest on the island of Guernsey, and will have provided amble opportunity for bird-watching.
Item #JLR0502
Price: $450