A monograph of the Felidæ or family of the cats
THE WASSENAAR ZOO COPY
WITH ALL 11 PART-WRAPPERS BOUND IN
[London:] Taylor and Francis for the Author (“for the subscribers”), [1878–]1883. First edition.
Broadsheet folio (23 ½” x 18 ¾”, 596mm x 477mm): 2 binder’s blanks; 64 leaves, pp. i-v (title, imprint, 2pp. preface, introduction) vi-xvi [2] (list of plates, blank), 1-4 21-2 [2] (text, blank) 31-2 34 33 35 [1] (blank) 41-3 [1] (blank) 51-3 [1] (text) 61-4 7[2] (2pp. text) 8-16[2] (text, blank) 171-4 181-3 [1] (blank) 19-20[2] (2pp. text) 211-2, 22-23[2] (text, blank) 24-26[2] (2pp. text) 271-3 [1] (blank) 28-30[2] (2pp. text) 311-2 33[2] (2pp. text) 34-36[2] (text, blank) 37[2] (2pp. text) 38[2] (text, blank) 39-41[2] (2pp. text) 421-3 [1] (blank) 431-3 [1] (blank); 11 part-wrappers (fronts only); 2 binder’s blanks. With 43 hand-colored lithographed plates by Joseph Smit after Joseph Wolf, printed by Hanhart.
Bound in perhaps slightly later half green morocco over green cloth. On the spine, five raised bands. Title gilt to the second panel, author gilt to the third, date (1883) gilt to the tail. Top edge of the text-block gilt.
Rubbed peripherally, with some small losses at the fore-corners. The very odd bit of mild foxing. An old tape repair to the verso of the F. javensis plate (the film removed, but discolored from the adhesive) and a repaired tear to the bottom edge of the leaf following it, neither affecting image or text. The part-wrappers sometimes folded transversely.
Daniel Giraud Elliot (1835–1915) is often called the American Gould; he was a zoologist of the highest order and employed the greatest artists — Smit and Wolf he shared with his British predecessor — to make large-format illustrated works of natural history. Elliot was one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History. Whereas his bird books decidedly reference his British predecessors, the Felidæ stands apart for its treatment of quadrupeds with real personality in fully-realized backgrounds. Elliot made significant advances in feline taxonomy, amalgamating species and reducing the overall number by around a third.
Dierenpark Wassenaar (Wassenaar Zoo in the Netherlands, which closed in 1985) was at the forefront of animal research in the middle of the XXc. The library of the zoo, assembled in the 1950’s, included nearly all the works of Gould along with most of the great natural history color-plate books.
Nissen, ZBI 1279; Wood 1883.
Item #JLR0891
Price: $125,000