“THE GRANDFATHER OF AUSTRALIAN ORNITHOLOGY”: LATHAM’S GENERAL HISTORY OF BIRDS, WITH 193 HAND-COLORED PLATES

LATHAM, John. A General History of Birds. Winchester: Jacob and Johnson, 1821-28. Eleven volumes. Quarto, contemporary three-quarter green morocco, raised bands, spines with gilt bird motifs, marbled boards and endpapers, all edges gilt. Index in original gray paper boards rebacked in brown morocco, uncut.

First edition of this comprehensive and systematic study “of every new discovery in ornithology,” illustrated with 193 hand-colored copperplate engravings by Latham himself, handsomely bound by Mackenzie.

Known as the “grandfather of Australian ornithology” for his descriptions of birds in Arthur Phillip’s Voyage to Botany Bay (1789), Dr. John Latham was the first to describe and name a large number of Australian birds, among them the emu, white cockatoo, wedge-tailed eagle, lyre-bird and magpie. He was a founding member of the Linnean Society in 1788, and through this association became acquainted with the noteworthy British naturalists and natural history collectors of his day. By way of these connections, he was able to examine most of the specimens and drawings of the newly discovered Australian and South Seas’ birds that were pouring into England from various expeditions. Latham’s General History of Birds, an enlargement of his earlier General Synopsis of Birds (1781-1801), “is his great work, and was dedicated to George IV. He designed, etched, and colored all the illustrations himself” (DNB). “A particularly important source of illustrations of Australian birds was the ‘Lambert drawings’ which Latham borrowed from Aylmer Bourke Lambert who apparently acquired them from Surgeon-General John White. A considerable number of these appear to be copies of some of the ‘Watling drawings,’ the work of Thomas Watling and other artists in the infant settlement at Port Jackson. Although he does not mention Watling, Latham quotes notes on the habits of birds taken from drawings in the Watling set… Latham made the first contribution of any importance to Australian ornithology, and it was not surpassed until John Gould embarked on his comprehensive and systematic study several decades later” (ADB). Nine plates with duplicate numbers (two numbers altered by hand). Zimmer, 376-77. See Anker 277-79; Nissen 532; Sitwell, 114. Armorial bookplate. Owner signature.

Interiors quite clean, with foxing only to occasional sections, plates near-fine (some plates treated with a contemporary fixative, since faintly discolored), minor offsetting from text to plates. Moderate rubbing to extremities of original morocco, paper on front board of Index half scraped away. An extremely good set.