Bibliographia Araneorum Analyse Methodique de toute la Litterature Araneologique jusqu'en 1939. Tome 1-3

Description:

Original edition. Text French.

T. H. Savory, in a review of the first volume of this work, published in Nature, 1946, states ‘On an early page of this amazing book, Dr. Bonnet relates how…, he was persuaded to take to the study of spiders with the recommendation that the bibliography of the group would be found to be “à peu pràs insignificante”. He tells us, too, how the idea of a complete bibliography grew in his mind, of how he collected the 8,000 and more references which such a work involved, and how finally he undertook to read, analyse and index the contents of nearly all these publications himself. It was a task which few men would have shouldered ; it was indeed so great that it entailed a special mode of life, demanding day after day, and even night after night, an unfaltering attention and a faith in the value of the work which raises enthusiasm to an almost fantastic devotion. Here, a triumph of perseverance, are the first results, justifying the incredible enterprise’.

Volume 1 provides a review of the history of the study of spiders, including biographies of the leading contributors.

Condition

3 vols bound in 7, brown buckram. Paper browned. A few marginal pencil annotations. Book-plate of B.J. Kaston (1906-85), American arachnologist. Vg.