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

Description:

Mixed issues in uniform bindings: Butterflies (Thomas Sanderson, 1857, reissue); Moths (Vol. I: Wm S. Orr, 1851, reissue; Vol. II: William Smith, 1845, first edition). Fine hand-coloured lithographic plates.

This three-volume set represents a successful collaboration between illustrator and naturalist, Henry Noel Humphreys (1810-1879), and eminent entomologist and Professor of Zoology at Oxford, John Obadiah Westwood (1805-1893).

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 volume on butterflies was first published in 1841 and he two volumes on moths in 1843 and 1845. All volumes were also reissued several times.

Nissen ZBI 2049, 2050.

Condition

3 vols, large 4to, cont. half morocco by Thomas Kerslake, Bristol, gilt tooling to spines, all edges gilt. Leather rather heavily rubbed and scuffed with wear to spines and corners, joints beginning to split in places, but still firm, a couple of chips to leather on spines. Some foxing to endpapers and first and final leaves, occasional slight spotting elsewhere, but internally largely clean and bright with plates well-coloured. Good set.