LATHAM, John

A General History of Birds.

> click here to see the full size image.

Bohn, circa London, 1845. 11 volumes (the eleventh the Index) bound in ten, quarto, with 193 handcoloured etched plates, some with 1838 watermarks; contemporary (probably original) half brown morocco, the spines slightly chipped. A fine set of this great colour-plate bird book, with many species of Australian and Pacific interest. Illustrated here is the Sanguineous Honey-Eater which 'inhabits New South Wales; common in the neighbourhood of the Nepean River'.

This is the rare second issue of the second, expanded edition: this issue, with handcoloured plates 'like highly finished drawings' and heightened in gilt, was limited to probably no more than twenty-five copies.

Henry Bohn was responsible for this version of the book, which evidently appeared in the mid-1840s. Bohn's 1847 catalogue offered this issue 'elegantly hf. bd. morocco' at twelve guineas, and noted that 'This celebrated work was published at twenty-five guineas in boards, with the plates coloured in a very inferior manner. The present copies are all coloured like highly finished drawings, with studious accuracy, under the direction of several eminent Ornithologists, and most of the subjects have been compared with living or preserved specimens in the Museums and Gardens of London...'. The late Charles Swann believed that no more than twenty-five copies of this issue appeared. The bibliographer Brunet notes of the second edition that 'il y a un choix à faire entre les exempl., qui ont été plus ou moins bien enluminées', and the bibliographer Lowndes notes the existence of two issues, but the question of issues does not seem to have been discussed by later bibliographers.

Dr John Latham, a successful medical man, was the pre-eminent ornithologist of his day. 'Known as the Grandfather of Australian ornithology, he was the first to describe, and to name scientifically, a large number of Australian birds...' (Whittell, The Literature of Australian Birds). He was a prominent figure in the formation of the Linnean Society in 1789 and a close associate of the leading scientific figures of his day, including Sir Joseph Banks, Thomas Pennant and Sir Ashton Lever, with whom he swapped specimens and reports of the latest ornithological discoveries. He built up a substantial collection of bird skins and a very fine library: 'Latham dominated ornithology for half a century... It must always be borne in mind that Latham, as well as following his profession, visited all the museums, published his works, etched every copper plate in his original work, stuffed and set up almost every animal in his very extensive museum, and put together, with his own hands, a great many of the very cases in which they were disposed...' (Gregory Mathews).

Latham was certainly the right man at the right place and time to monopolise the description and depiction of the newly-discovered Australian species. He was the first to describe more than one hundred new Australian birds, using specimens belonging to Banks and others. He provided fifty-five etched plates including nineteen of birds for Phillip's Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay, 1789. One of the plates was for the new parrot named in honour of his friend Thomas Pennant, Psittacus pennantii, the crimson rosella.

The General History of Birds, which was to become his best-known work, is an expansion of his earlier General Synopsis of Birds. The General History contains one hundred and ninety-three plates 'including all the species in his former work as well as many additional ones, including Australian species in the collection of the Linnean Society...' (Whittell).
Henry G. Bohn, Catalogue of Books, Volume I, 1847, p. 6; Nissen, IVB, 532; Nissen, SVB, 290; Whittell, pp. 409-12; Wood, p. 427; Zimmer, II, p. 377. See also Christine E. Jackson: 'Bird etchings: the illustrators and their books 1655-1855' (Chapter 8: John Latham, 1740-1837), Cornell University Press, 1985.

• AUD 55,000.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: 105_210

• bookseller: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)