British Butterflies and their Transformations [with] British Moths and their Transformations. Vol. I-II

Description:

First editions, with superior colouring. A landmark in Victorian entomological illustration, this magnificent three-volume set represents the fruitful collaboration between Henry Noel Humphreys (1810–1879), the accomplished illustrator and naturalist, and John Obadiah Westwood (1805–1893), eminent entomologist and Professor of Zoology at Oxford.

In the preface to the first volume, British Butterflies and their Transformations, Humphreys explains that while living in Italy he was inspired to collect and study “glittering butterflies.” Later he found that he could only identify and arrange his collection of British butterflies in their various stages with reference to European publications. He wrote ‘feeling thus the want of some popular work in which the transformations of British Lepidoptera were accurately described and developed, with accurate portraits of each insect in its three great stages, the caterpillar, the chrysalis, and the butterfly or moth, I planned the present work with the view of supplying the deficiency’. Inspired Humphreys commenced the task of producing 42 beautiful drawings, each depicting the life stages of butterflies, together with the foodplant of the caterpillars. Lithographs were then printed which were delicately hand coloured. Westwood produced the accompanying text for each plate, lending the work scientific precision to match its artistic merit. Dunbar (2010- British Butterflies) states that this work set ‘a high, and arguably unequalled, standard in Victorian butterfly book illustration’.

The collaboration between Humphreys and Westwood continued with the production of the subsequent two-volume work, British Moths and their Transformations, published in 1843 and 1845. This included 124 fine plates of moths. Due to the number of species, some plates illustrate over 20 specimens on each plate.

Nissen ZBI 2049, 2050.

Condition

3 vols, large 4to, fine, uniform, cont. red half morocco, raised bands, gilt tooling to spine compartments, marbled boards, additional leather title labels to front boards, aeg; some rubbing. Largely clean, but with some foxing to one title page, occasional light foxing/spotting elsewhere; four plates of moths more heavily spotted. A fine, handsomely bound set. Small printed bookplates of British Lepidopterist, Arthur Naish, Brooklyn Lodge, Ashley Hill, Bristol.