Natural history & science
The Floral Register…
London: Simpkin, Marshall, circa 1845. Small quarto, illustrated with over 1900 woodcuts; an attractive copy in contemporary red half roan, marbled boards and endpapers. A remarkable work, a concise introduction to exotic plant species introduced to England until the early 1840s, with specific notice of plants from all parts of...
Price (AUD):
$2,200.00
Ref: #4002627
A New Dictionary of Natural History; or, Compleat Universal Display or Animated Nature…
London: Harrison & Co., 1785.
The Leverian and beyond: natural history for the popular market
Two volumes, folio, with 100 handcoloured engraved plates (most incorporating from four to eight images); title-pages printed in black and red; contemporary marbled calf, very skilfully rebacked to match, preserving original red and green labels...
Price (AUD):
$9,750.00
Ref: #4505058
Natural History of Victoria. Prodromus of the zoology of Victoria…
Melbourne: Robert S. Brain, 1885 -, 1890.
An overlooked classic of Australian natural history
Two volumes, thick octavo, with all 20 "decades", 199 lithographic plates (including one double folding plate), nearly all coloured and some finished by hand; attractively bound in contemporary navy half calf, spines gilt, double labels in...
Price (AUD):
$9,850.00
Ref: #3709351
Notes and Sketches of New South Wales, during a residence in that Colony from 1839 to 1844.
London: John Murray, 1844.
Bathurst and Homebush by a great woman naturalist
Small octavo, 164 pp., half title, one page of illustrations; in modern tan calf, gilt. A fine and engaging work by Louisa Anne Meredith, better known for her long and industrious career in Tasmania, but here publishing an...
Price (AUD):
$550.00
Ref: #4107589
Testimony of the Rocks.
Edinburgh: Thomas Constable & Co, 1857.
From the library of William Berry
Octavo, numerous text illustrations; publisher's blind-stamped cloth. Published posthumously and as the melancholy Note records " Few readers of this volume, it is presumed, need to be informed that its lamented author spent a part of the last...
Price (AUD):
$450.00
Ref: #4403187
Memoria sobre a Cultura das Oliveiras em Portugal…
Coimbra: Real Officina Typografica da Universidade, 1786. Small quarto, woodcut initial and tailpieces; contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt. A fine copy of the first edition of this comprehensive manual on the cultivation of olive trees. Dalla Bella had earlier published a work on the manufacture of olive oil - Memorias...
Price (AUD):
$2,850.00
Ref: #4211228
Encyclopédie méthodique. Histoire naturelle: Insectes.
Paris: Panckoucke, Agasse, 1789-1825.
Australian insects collected by Banks and Labillardière
Nine quarto volumes, comprising seven text volumes and two of plates, 397 numbered plates and one bis; bindings a bit scuffed and a few joints starting, lower spine end of two volumes snagged, a good set overall in contemporary.....
Price (AUD):
$10,850.00
Ref: #4103473
Vulpine Opossum.
London: John Stockdale, 31 August, 1789.
After a drawing by Latham
Original engraving, 260 x 190 mm. Mounted. Marvellous image of the "Vulpine Opossum" after an original drawing by Latham. This print is taken from Governor Phillip's Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay published by Stockdale in late 1789...
Price (AUD):
$550.00
Ref: #2908538
Theatrum Botanicum, The Theater of Plants…
London: Thomas Cotes, 1640.
The largest early English herbal, with 2700 original woodblock illustrations
Folio, with elaborately engraved title-page and about 2700 woodcut illustrations in the text; in an attractive later binding of smooth polished calf. An especially good copy of this famous and beautiful English herbal, 'one of the...
Price (AUD):
$13,250.00
Ref: #3409278
Stypandra Frutescens. Flowering Plant.
London: 1834. Handcoloured lithograph; mounted, printed size approx 240 x 160mm. This lithograph of an Australian plant is taken from Joseph Paxton's Magazine of Botany and Register of Flowering Plants. Paxton's note on the plant commented that it 'is a very distinct species of stypandra… raised from New Holland seeds...
Price (AUD):
$150.00
Ref: #1600593
!["The Duck-Bill, (Ornithorhynchus paradoxurus)" [in], 1836. PLATYPUS, SATURDAY MAGAZINE](/pictures/thumb/2604303.jpg?v=1434432054)
"The Duck-Bill, (Ornithorhynchus paradoxurus)" [in], 1836.
London: Parker, 8, October, 1836. Small folio, 2 pp.; woodcut illustration, disbound. An illustrated two-page description of the platypus which, although based on field observations of one Mr. Bennet, still demonstrates the lack of understanding of this unique creature: "It is now a clearly-ascertained fact, that the young are suckled...
Price (AUD):
$285.00
Ref: #2604303
The Gallery of Nature and Art; or, A Tour through Creation and Science.
London: R. N. Rose, 1821.
"A literary conservatory of rare, curious, and interesting productions…"
Six volumes, octavo, illustrated by one hundred engravings (some folding); contemporary half calf, marbled boards. Generously illustrated cyclopaedia of curious knowledge gleaned from myriad sources for the general reader. In the preface, the good Reverend Polehampton...
Price (AUD):
$2,250.00
Ref: #3710489
A Catalogue of the Portland Museum…
London: Skinner and Co., 1786.
Hawaiian feather cloaks and tapa
Quarto; engraved frontispiece not present (as is the case with some copies), contemporary half sheep. An unsophisticated copy of this rare auction catalogue, of particular interest to Australia and the Pacific for its many hundreds of natural history lots, including...
Price (AUD):
$3,850.00
Ref: #3403138
A Circular to Sea Captains and other Seafaring Men.
Portland: Henry F. Perry & Co. for the museum, 1881. Octavo pamphlet, 12pp., original printed wrappers. An eloquent plea to seafarers to collect natural history specimens for the Portland Society of Natural History - which had twice lost their magnificent collections to fire. The pamphlet, printed fifteen years after the...
Price (AUD):
$240.00
Ref: #4202824
O Le Tala I Tino O Tagata Ma Mea Ola Eseese…
Chilworth and London: Unwin Brothers, 1886.
Samoan zoology
Octavo, illustrated, presentation note to Jason Spicer tipped in, bookplate of Edward Unwin; original decorated boards. First edition: an uncommon and impressively detailed account of zoology entirely in the "Samoan Dialect". This was a presentation copy from the author, with his note...
Price (AUD):
$975.00
Ref: #4206958
Photographic Carte de visite portrait of T.H. Huxley.
London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, circa 1880.
Veteran of the Rattlesnake, friend of Darwin
Carte de visite measuring 94 x 60 mm, Fine carte de visite portrait of Professor Thomas Huxley, one of the pre-eminent naturalists of Victorian England who championed the evolutionary theory propounded by Charles Darwin throughout his...
Price (AUD):
$650.00
Ref: #4304404
James Edward Smith M.D., F.R.S., President of the Linnean Society...
London: Published for Dr. Thornton, 25 March, 1800.
The bounty of Linneaus in English hands
Stipple engraved oval portrait of James Edward Smith above line engraved view of 'The Pursuit of the ship containing the Linnean Collection by order of the King of Spain', on the one sheet 480 x....
Price (AUD):
$1,250.00
Ref: #4107647
Designs for Ornamental Villas.
London: James Carpenter, 1830. Quarto, lithograph title and 96 lithograph plates; possibly lacking additional letterpress title (?), in modern quarter calf. Third edition of this classic architectural pattern book. Robinson (1776-1858) was a prolific and versatile designer of country mansions and picturesque cottages. In the present work he provides sixteen...
Price (AUD):
$1,350.00
Ref: #2802469
Village Architecture. Being a Series of Designs for the Inn…
London: James Carpenter, 1837. Quarto, plates; original publisher's quarter calf. Fourth edition of Robinson's fourth pattern-book, including designs for all types of village buildings from an Anglo-Norman church to a pump. The last of the high-quality plates is a view of the village street which emphasises the irregularity and varied...
Price (AUD):
$1,350.00
Ref: #2812012
Einige Naturhistorische Bemerkungen über die Walle nebst einer Abbildung.
Greifswald: F.W. Kunicke, 1827. Folio, with engraved plate by G. Eduard Müller, some foxing; a good copy preserved in recent paper boards, blue morocco label to spine. A lovely copy of this rare work on the Minke Whale, here referred to by the now obsolete classification of Balaena rostrata Fabr.....
Price (AUD):
$2,650.00
Ref: #3704935
Le Jardin des Plantes.
Paris: Ducrocq, probably 1873.
With kangaroos and, more remarkably, a platypus
Oblong folio, 24 colour-printed plates and 41 pp. text; some browning of the paper as common for books of this era, but very good in the original red boards embossed in gilt, bumped and a little worn at edges...
Price (AUD):
$3,100.00
Ref: #3706054
Results of Astronomical Observations…
Sydney: Charles Potter, 1893.
A visit to the Sydney observatory
Octavo, three plates, colour folding map of Sydney, folding plan of the Sydney Observatory; original pebble-grain cloth, gilt vignette on upper board. The fold-out lithographic map of Sydney locates the site of the Sydney Observatory, a detailed site map shows...
Price (AUD):
$545.00
Ref: #2704862
De Corporibus Marinis…
Rome: Joannis Zempel, 1759.
Are fossils mere 'tricks of nature'?
Quarto, frontispiece and 30 engraved plates; mid-nineteenth century half calf; gilt lettering. Early treatise on the formation of fossils from plants and animals that once lived, thereby rejecting existing notions that fossils were miraculously derived or mere 'tricks of nature'...
Price (AUD):
$1,925.00
Ref: #4211249
The Sea Leopard.
Sydney: Thomas Richards, 1869. Coloured lithograph, 355 x 460 mm. Attractive coloured lithograph of two seal-leopards, from the press of the Sydney government printer.
Price (AUD):
$300.00
Ref: #1600668