[Pennant, Thomas]

First edition, folio (526 x 360mm.), title and dedication printed in red and black, 132 hand-coloured etched plates by P. Mazell after P. Paillou, contemporary mottled calf gilt, panelled in blind, roll-tooled border gilt around edges, spine gilt in nine compartments, lettered in one, [Anker 392; Fine Bird Books, p.99; Jackson, Etchings, p.106; Nissen IVB 710; Wood, p.515; Zimmer, p.487], one plate with marginal tear, some minor spotting and offsetting

Earl of Plymouth, engraved armorial bookplate

"The first coloured illustrations of birds in a book which attempted to list and portray all of the British species, many of them life-size... Peter Paillou contributed most of the designs and coloured the prints, the colour being extended to the trees, branches and foregrounds. These really splendid folio plates cost Pennant so much that the British charity school at Clerkenwell Green, for which the profits of the book were intended, came off rather badly, as did Pennant himself. Nevertheless they showed what could be done in the production of good, large pictures of British birds. Much of the credit must go to Mazell, the meticulous and tidy etcher, for his fidelity to Paillou's drawings" (Jackson).