British Mineralogy: or Coloured Figures Intended to Elucidate the Mineralogy of Great Britain.
London: Printed by R. Taylor and Co... And sold by the Author... and by White, Fleet-Street, Symonds, Paternoster-row... [then] Printed by Arding and Merrett... and sold by the Author... [and] Sherwood and Co., Paternoster Row; and by all other Book, 1804-17. First edition. Five volumes. Large 8vo. Recent brown half morocco over marbled boards, spines with raised bands, gilt lettered dark green labels, lettered direct to another panel. 550 hand coloured plates all with letterpress descriptions over one or two leaves. Occasional mild offsetting from some of the plates to opposing text leaves in the later volumes, a very good set overall. Sowerby issued his masterfully illustrated catalogue of British minerals in parts between 1802 and 1817, although the title pages of the books are dated from 1804 onwards. Lawrence H. Conklin, in his paper on Sowerby's mineralogical works (Mineral Record, July 1995), refers to this as "the supreme work of British topographical mineralogy" and "certainly the most ambitious colorplate work on minerals ever published". An uncommon work, Conklin surmised that there are fewer than one hundred complete sets, having personally come across fifty during the course of his researches. Item #32294
Price: £20,000.00