Ichthyology of South Carolina
Vol. I (all published). Charleston, SC: Welch, Bigelow and Company at the University Press (Cambridge, MA) for Russell and Jones, 1860. Second edition.
Quarto (11 ½” x 9 ½”, 292mm x 242mm): binder’s blank, π4 1-264 (264 blank), binder’s blank [$1 signed]. 108 leaves, pp. i-iii (title, imprint, preface) iv-vii [1] (blank) 1 2-205 [3] (3 blanks). With 28 hand-colored lithographed plates by Sinclair of Philadelphia.
Bound in contemporary half black morocco(re-backed) over green marbled boards by W.H. Welch and Son of Charleston, SC (their ticket pasted to the front paste-down). On the spine, four raised bands. Title gilt to the second panel, number gilt to the fourth, “Willis.” (owner?) gilt to the tail. Pink end-papers. All edges of the text-block speckled brown.
Exceptionally subtly re-backed, with wear to the peripheries and some rubbing and skinning to the boards.The joints reinforced. Sporadically tanned with some foxing, particularly to the recto of pl. XXVI. Altogether very good.
John Edwards Holbrook (1796–1876), a native of South Carolina, gained renown from his first major published work, American Herpetology, or a Description of Reptiles inhabiting the United States (Philadelphia: 1836-1842, 5 volumes). Through it, he met Louis Agassiz, the celebrated biologist and geologist from Harvard University, who became a lifelong friend. Holbrook then turned his attention to fish and began a Southern Ichthyology (New York, 1847), which included descriptions of the fishes of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. After the publication of only two numbers (a total of 60 pages and two plates), Holbrook realized that the field was going to be too extensive, and he halted the publication. He later returned to the subject, this time concentrating on a smaller geographical area, and between 1855 and 1857 he published the first volume (in ten parts) of the Ichthyology of South Carolina.
A disastrous fire in the Artists’ Building in Philadelphia destroyed all the plates, stones, and original drawings, and Holbrook temporarily abandoned the project. The second edition, with the text reworked and all the plates redrawn, was published in 1860. In the preface Holbrook writes: “As but few numbers of the [first edition] ... were distributed previous to the destruction of the original plates, &c., and the present edition is so much improved, I have decided to recall the former numbers, and to replace them by those of the new edition, without expense to the present holders.” Indeed, the plates in the second edition, done by the lithographer T. Sinclair of Philadelphia, differ dramatically from those of the first, both in terms of coloring and anatomical detail. Unfortunately, once again only the first volume of the work appeared: this time Civil War intervened, and the work was finally abandoned for good.
The binding by William H. Welch & Son of Charleston fits the élite social milieu of the work, viz. South Carolinians with enough education and leisure time both to fish and to collect books. The book was presumably bound for the Willis whose name is in gilt at the tail, but the identity of the binding owner is unclear.
Bennett p. 56; Meisel III, p. 486; Nissen, ZBI 1979; Sabin 32452.
Item #JLR0893
Price: $26,000