SHARPE, RICHARD BOWDLER | Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower-Birds. London: Henry Sotheran & Co. [printed by Taylor and Francis], 1891-1898

SHARPE, RICHARD BOWDLER 

Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower-Birds. London: Henry Sotheran & Co. [printed by Taylor and Francis], 1891-1898

2 vols., folios (21 3/4 x 14 1/2 in.; 534 x 375 mm). Title-page to each volume, 79 hand-colored lithographic plates, mostly by and after W. Hart or by Hart after J. Gould, a smaller number by Hart after J. G. Keulemans or by and after Keulemans, in-text woodcuts and half-tone illustrations; light spotting at beginning and end and occasionally to text. Brown morocco, gilt central coat-of-arms of Henry Martin Gibbs, surrounded by gilt bird tools and floral border, elaborately gilt turn-ins stamp-signed by Zaehnsdorf 1903, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; some minor rubbing to extremities.

First edition "Gould, in his Birds of New Guinea, figured nearly every species known in his day, and he had intended to publish a complete Monograph of the Family, for which purpose he kept the lithographic stones from which the plates had been prepared. Thus it came to pass that when Messrs. Sotheran purchased the stock of Gould's works after his death, they acquired the stones with which he had intended to illustrate his Monograph of the Paradiseidae. Many of them were broken or otherwise damaged, and of these some have been redrawn or replaced by new plates by Mr. Hart. Since Gould's time, however, many marvellous new species have been discovered, and these have been described and figured in the present work" (Appendix).

REFERENCE:

Fine Bird Books 107; Nissen, IVB 865; Zimmer 581; Wood 565

PROVENANCE:

Henry Martin Gibbs (armorial bookplate to front pastedowns; coat-of-arms to upper covers)