Natural History, General and Particular, by the Count de Buffon, Illustrated with Above Six Hundred Copper-Plates. The History of Man and Quadrupeds Translated, with Notes and Observations, by William Smellie

Count de Buffon [Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon]; William Smellie; William Wood

Edité par T. Cadell and W. Davies, London, 1812

A propos de cet article

A copiously illustrated new edition of this encyclopaedic natural history, complete here in twenty volumes. A new edition, carefully corrected and considerably enlarged by many additional articles, notes, and plates. With an account of Buffon's life by William Wood. Complete in twenty volumes.Rebound in modern maroon cloth. Renewed endpapers. Bound with the original blanks and half titles.A complete set of Comte de Buffon's Natural History, General and Particular.Named the "father of all thought in natural history in the second half of the 18th century" by Ernst Mayr, Buffon worked on this series for some fifty years. Thirty-six volumes came out between 1749 and 1789, followed by 8 more after his death, thanks to Bernard Germain de Lacépède.It includes all the knowledge available in his time on the "natural sciences", a broad term that includes disciplines which today would be called material science, physics, chemistry and technology. Buffon notes the morphological similarities between men and apes, although he considered apes completely devoid of the ability to think, differentiating them sharply from human beings. Buffon's attention to internal anatomy made him an earlycomparative anatomist.Vols I-II cover Theory of the Earth; Vol. III covers History of Man; Vols. IV-X cover History of Quadrupeds; Vol. XI covers History of Birds;Illustrated with upwards of six hundred copper plates, bound as such:Vol. I - Portrait frontispiece and two folding maps.Vol. II - Thirteen plates, six of which are folding.Vol. III - One plate.Vol. IV - Folding genealogical table and forty-eight plates.Vol. V - Sixty-four plates.Vol. VI - Sixty-six plates. Two plates numbered 152, both titled 'Marmot of the Cape' though illustrating two different animals, and two plates numbered 158 with different animals (the second being Crab-eater Raccoon, thus following plate no. 158 to face page 155, instead of p. 163). As issued.Vol. VII - Fifty plates, two of which are folding. 'Female Opossum' bound facing page 117 instead of p. 115. Lacking Plate No. 211 'Crab-Eater', as found to be the case with other copies. Page numbers for plates CCXV-CCXXIII in binder's directions from 134-172 are misprinted as 234, 236 etc. Rights itself when it gets to 304. Plate No. 242 'Hippopotamus' bound facing page 472 instead of 435.Vol. VIII - Forty-nine plates. Plate no. 261 'Tzeiran' bound following no. 262 instead of facing page 170.Vol. IX - Fifty-six plates. Several plates in this volume have binding discrepancies but are all confirmed present.Vol. X - Sixty-nine plates.Vol. XI - Twenty-nine plates.Vol. XII - Twenty-seven plates. Several plates in this volume have binding discrepancies but are all confirmed present.Vol. XIII - Twenty-seven plates.Vol. XIV - Twenty-two plates.Vol. XV - Twenty-two plates.Vol. XVI - Fifteen plates.Vol. XVII - Nineteen plates.Vol. XVIII - Thirty-one plates.Vol. XIX - Forty plates.Vol. XX - Thirty-four plates.Collated, complete. Rebound in modern maroon cloth. Externally, lovely, with only the odd minor mark. Internally, firmly bound. Pages are generally bright and clean, with occasional scattered spotting, often more populated to the plates and surrounding pages. Occasional offsetting caused by plates. Reference clipping tipped-in to the verso of the half title of Vol I. Small open tear affecting the last four plates of Vol. IV. Very Good Indeed.

N° de réf. du vendeur 995Y33

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Natural History, General and Particular, by the Count de Buffon, Illustrated with Above Six Hundred Copper-Plates. The History of Man and Quadrupeds Translated, with Notes and Observations, by William Smellie
• Éditeur: T. Cadell and W. Davies, London
• Date de parution: 1812
• Reliure: Cloth
• Illustrateur: Not Stated
• État de l'article: Very Good Indeed
• Type de livre: book