William Cornwallis Harris | Portraits of the game and wild animals of Southern Africa, 1840

William Cornwallis Harris

Portraits of the game and wild animals of Southern Africa, delineated from life in their native haunts, during a hunting expedition from the Cape Colony as far as the Tropic of Capricorn, in 1836 and 1837, with sketches of the field sports. London: W. Pickering, 1840

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, folio (537 x 360mm.), additional hand-coloured lithographed title, dedication, list of subscribers, 30 fine hand-coloured lithographed plates after Harris by Frank Howard, tail-piece vignettes by Howard, red half morocco gilt by J. Wright, spine gilt in compartments with motifs of African animals, without list of subscribers, occasional slight spotting

The first issue has lithographed vignettes representing herds, horns and skins; in the later issues, these were omitted. "One of the most important and valuable of the large folio works on South African fauna… In addition to the beautiful coloured engravings which render the work almost the most highly prized of the books relating to South African animals, every plate is accompanied by an exhaustive chapter on the characteristics of the animal represented'' (Mendelssohn).

LITERATURE:

Abbey, Travel 335; Mendelssohn 1:688; Schwerdt 1:231

PROVENANCE:

G.R. Nicolaus, engraved bookplate