A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains.

remarkably wide-margined subscriber's copy of Gould's first folio illustrated work

Gould's first folio illustrated work - a remarkably wide-margined example.

The sketches of birds of the Himalaya Mountains were drawn from a valuable collection of bird-skins which he received, mainly from the North-western Himalayas, in 1830. This work, transferred to stone by Elizabeth Gould, was by far the most accurately illustrated work on foreign ornithology up to this time and remains to this day a particularly fine series of ornithological plates. The especially wide margins in this copy give the images even more room to breath and shine as artistic renditions. The subscribers' list (here present) comprises 298 names, including J.J. Audubon, Baron Cuvier, Sir William Jardine, John Latham, Edward Lear, Captain Frederick Marryatt, Sir Thomas Phillipps, Dr John Richardson, P.J. Selby, William Swainson, and William Yarrell.

Gould, a taxidermist by training, had been working for the Zoological Society where he was Curator of Birds and Preserver at the Society's museum in Bruton Street. Whilst working on a collection of birds from the Himalayas, Gould realised that they formed the first collection of any size from the area to reach Europe and that there would be a ready market for a large format work which included accurate descriptive text and plates. He persuaded his friend and mentor, N.A. Vigors, Secretary of the Zoological Society to provide the text.

First edition, first issue; folio (57 x 39 cm); dedication leaf, advertisement leaf, list of subscribers, list of plates, 80 hand-coloured lithographed plates after and by Elizabeth Gould (from sketches by John Gould), printed by C. Hullmandel, discreet bookplate to front pastedown, a few margins frayed and professionally repaired with small tear with loss to top margin of pl.44 repaired, a couple of plates lightly spotted otherwise very fresh; contemporary green morocco richly gilt, spine gilt lettered, top edge gilt, spine a little sunned, a near-fine copy.

Anker 168; Ayer/Zimmer 251; Fine Bird Books p77; Jackson Lithography 40-41; Nissen IVB, 374; Sauer 1; Wood 364.