June 2021 Catalogue

4 S c i e n c e & M e d i c i n e • J u n e 2 0 2 1 “His Volumes Are The Journal Of Adam In Paradise” 2. WHITE, Gilbert. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne. London, 1789. Quarto, contemporary marbled boards rebacked in calf-gilt, custom clamshell box. $4200. Click for more info First edition of this “solitary classic of natural history,” with folding frontispiece panoramic view of Selborne and six engravings (one folding) by Peter Mazell and Daniel Lerpinire after drawings by Samuel Grimm. An uncut copy in original marbled boards. “Selborne may be obscure; but it is a beautiful village in a beautiful country eminently suited for the purpose of White in making it the center of a life’s work of zoological research and observation… His Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne holds a unique position in English literature as the solitary classic of natural history… The book was immediately popular both with the general public and with all naturalists, many of the most eminent of which class have successively edited it with additional and corroborative notes” ( Cambridge History X, Chapter XI, Section 16). Bookplate of noted Boston book collector Frank Brewer Bemis. Early dealer description tipped in. Text fine, some foxing to plates, contemporary marbled boards worn with some early paper repairs to boards. A very good uncut copy in a contemporary boards. “A pioneering English naturalist who transformed the way we look at the natural world.”—West, Natural History Museum London