Browse Similar Items
A MONOGRAPH OF THE PITTIDAE, OR FAMILY OF ANT-THRUSHES.
(London: Bernard Quaritch, 1893-95). 592 x 390 mm. (23 1/4 x 15 1/2"). xiii [1] pp., [3] leaves (chart and index), [53] leaves text. Five parts bound in one volume. Second Edition (Revised and Expanded).
Deep green half morocco over buckram boards, each section with a double gilt rule, raised bands, spine gilt in sections with a central tooled lozenge, all five original printed paper wrappers bound in at the rear, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. In a morocco-backed plush-lined clamshell box by J & S Brockman (their sticker inside the front cover), spine gilt to match binding. WITH 51 LOVELY HAND-COLORED LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES after Elliot, William Hart, and J. G. Keulemans. Ayer/Zimmer, p. 208; Wood, p. 332; Sitwell, "Fine Bird Books," p. 95. Boards just faintly soiled, but the binding otherwise very fine, with no other signs of wear; internally with only the most negligible imperfections (a small, scarcely visible repaired tear to the first plate, one other small marginal tear, one paper flaw), but a very beautiful copy, the text and plates fresh and vibrant.
Full of brightly colored tropical birds, this is a vast and important ornithological text about the avian family the author said was his "first love." Daniel Giraud Elliot (1835-1915) had a love and appreciation for nature that led him to pursue a career in natural history from an early age. According to ANB, "Of his generation of prominent American naturalists, Elliot had traveled most widely outside the United States," spending time, among other places, in the West Indies, Brazil, Turkey, Egypt, Palestine, Ethiopia, Somalia, India, China, Japan, and Europe, all the while studying the regional avifauna and collecting specimens. In addition to his ornithological works, Elliot also studied mammals, particularly primates, and was awarded the role of curator of zoology at the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago in 1894. Elliot originally published the present title, an in-depth monograph on a family of small, beautiful tropical birds, in six parts in New York from 1861-63, with 32 lithographs. Our second edition, while it reuses a few of the original plates, contains 34 new illustrations (eight of which are re-drawings of plates from the first edition) and a full revised text; in the introduction here Elliot calls it "an entirely new Monograph." The first edition was Elliot's first major work, and clearly one that had a major effect on him. He writes in the introduction: "It is not often that one returns to his first love and finds her, after many years, more beautiful than ever, as has been my experience in the present instance." (CRR2502)
Price: $32,000.00