[GOULD, John.] SHARPE, R. Bowdler. Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower-Birds.

£4,200 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

The last of the fine bird books from Sotheran’s vaults [GOULD, John.] SHARPE, R. Bowdler. Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower-Birds. London: Henry Sotheran Co. 1891–8. 79 uncoloured lithographic plates (560 x 390 mm) on thick paper, 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; a full set with text leaves; a little age toning, otherwise near fine. A full set, splendidly preserved, of the original unbound and uncoloured leaves from the first edition of this monumental posthumous summation of John Gould’s work on the birds-of-paradise. The eminent ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe (1847–1909), author of the text of this monograph, had previously completed Gould’s Birds of New Guinea after his death in 1881, and later successfully rallied subscribers to bring this work to completion – what English writer Sacheverell Sitwell described as ‘the last of the fine bird books’ . Sharpe best tells the story of the genesis of the work in his preface: ‘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 h

• Binding: Hardcover

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