Harmonia Ruralis; or, An Essay Towards A Natural History of British Songbirds.

BOLTON, James.

$12,500.00

Item Number: 111071

London: Printed For and Sold By the Author, 1794.

Rare first edition of Bolton’s magnificently illustrated work on British songbirds. First issue with the original plates 7 and 13 which differ in later issues. Quarto, two volumes bound into one in three quarters morocco with gilt titles and tooling to the spine, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, illustrated with eighty copper-plates of life-size male and female songbirds drawn, engraved and colored by the author, index. In near fine condition. First editions are rare, with only a handful appearing at auction in the last 100 years.

English naturalist, botanist, mycologist, and illustrator James Bolton published several volumes on natural history with illustrations and original research on exotic flowers, ferns, fungi, and this, his final work, on ornithology. Dedicated "to British ladies, to naturalists, and to all such as admire the beauty or melody of the feathered warblers", Harmonia ruralis contains eighty plates of life-size male and female songbirds and their nests drawn from life including the blackbird, bullfinch, goldfinch, sky lark, nightingale, reed-warbler, starling and song-thrush among others.