A monograph of the ramphastidæ, or family of toucans
THE PREFERRED SECOND EDITION
EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED WITH THE PLATES OF THE FIRST
London: Taylor & Francis for the author, 1854. Second edition.
Folio (21 ¾” x 14 ¾”, 551mm x 374mm): binder’s blank, π1(–π1) 2-7π2, χ1 2-27χ2, binder’s blank. 66 leaves, pp. 3-9 (title, blank, dedication, blank, 2pp. preface, introduction) 10-26, [2] (list of plates, blank); [106] (1-2pp. text following each plate except the last, which is followed by 4pp. text). With 85 lithographed plates (52 of the second edition, 33 of the first), of which 84 are hand-colored.[1] Instruction-slip to the binder bound at the end.[2]
Bound in contemporary dark green morocco with a wide gilt border. On the spine, five pairs of raised bands. Title gilt to the second panel, author gilt to the third, date gilt to the tail. Double gilt fillet to the edges of the boards. Gilt inside dentelles. Marbled end-papers. All edges of the text-block gilt.
Rubbed, with patches of wear at the corners and along the lower edge. Very little foxing, with some tanning and offsetting at the plates.
John Gould (1804–1881) conceived a massive project: to illustrate the world’s birds in a regal format. He is best known for his multi-volume works on the birds of every continent but Africa. The Toucans is the beginning of a different mode of that project: the production of highly analytical monographs. The first edition of the Toucans (1834, but 1833–1835) had 18 fewer plates, and was entirely revised in this second edition to account for newly discovered or distinguished species; four of the plates are free copies of those in the first edition, but the rest are newly drawn by Gould, his wife Elizabeth and their longtime collaborator Henry Constantine Richter; and printed by Hullmandel & Walton.
Most unusually — Mr. Arader has seen two further examples in the last six decades — the present example is augmented with the full suite of plates from the first edition, thus preserving the whole of Gould’s artistic work and presenting his preferred analytical text.
Anker 170; Ayer p. 259; Nissen, IVB 378; Sauer 19; Sitwell, Fine Bird Books p. 101.
[1] The uncolored plate, which was consistent between the editions, is present once rather than twice; the first edition was issued with 34 plates: 33 colored and 1 uncolored.
[2] Although the pagination implies a half-title-sheet, the instructions to the binder indicate that the volume is complete.
Item #JLR0701
Price: $175,000