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[ALPHABET].
Alphabet de L'Histoire des Animaux, orné de 27 gravures.
Paris, Brianchon Libraire, c. 1820.
Octavo, 6 pp., handcoloured engravings throughout; dampstained along outer margin, outer edge slightly chipped, otherwise a good copy in original pictorial wrappers.
Very early fully engraved Abecedaire for children. With an illustration of the kangaroo after Stubbs.
The back cover has a particularly good depiction of the Creation (Adam is sporting particularly handsome side-burns), but the front is the more interesting image, with a view of the Ménagerie du Jardin du Roi in Paris. The Jardin du Roi was built in the seventeenth century, and was opened to a wide range of visitors by Louis XIV and the great natural historian Buffon was appointed director in 1739. In the 1790s, the garden became the Jardin des Plantes under the direction of Cuvier.
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