Travel, Atlases, Maps, Photographs & Natural History
Travel, Atlases, Maps, Photographs & Natural History
Books from a Private Collection
Lot Closed
September 21, 09:19 AM GMT
Estimate
2,000 - 2,500 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Books from a Private Collection
Claude W. Wyatt
British birds: being coloured illustrations of all the species of passerine birds resident in the British Isles. London: William Wesley & Son, 1894-1899
FIRST EDITION, 2 volumes, 4to (325 x 250mm.), 67 hand-coloured lithographed plates after Wyatt, contemporary red calf gilt, sprinkled edges, marbled endpapers
GERALD DURRELL'S COPY, WITH HIS DISTINCTIVE DODO BOOKPLATE.
"Except in ornithological circles, this very good artist and author is unknown... He was an amateur among the world of professional draughtsmen with big names and reputations at the close of the 19th century" (Jackson, Bird Illustrators, pp.100-102). Claude W. Wyatt lived from 1842 to 1900.
PROVENANCE:
Gerald Durrell (1925-1995), naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, and author of My Family and Other Animals, bookplate
LITERATURE:
Fine Bird Books, p.116; Mullens & Swann, p.667; Nissen IVB 1027; Zimmer, p.69