Wilson and Bonaparte's American Ornithology, With Hand-Colored Plates

Alexander Wilson; Charles Lucian Bonaparte; Sir William Jardine, Bart. AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY; OR, THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. (3) vols. (complete). London: Whittaker, Treacher, & Arnot; Edinburgh: Stirling & Kenney, 1832. Gilt-tooled burgundy leather boards, with all edges gilt. 8vo; 408; 390; 523pp. with index, plus (97) total hand-colored plates engraved by Lizars with most after Wilson's drawings; with a continuation by Bonaparte and notes and life of Wilson by Jardine; vol. I with portrait frontispiece. Sabin 104598.

8 3/4 x 6 in. each

From the New Hampshire Collection of Tatyana Archambault

Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) was a Scottish-American ornithologist and poet whose work describing and illustrating America's birds came two decades before Audubon's well-known Birds of America.

Boards with scuffing, wear to extremities, light chipping to spine ends, one area of peeling, and occasional dry cracking to leather; volumes with general hinge and joint cracking, with vol. I re-jointed with reinforcement at front hinge, and the other two volumes with upper board present but fully detached; wear to endpapers including one paste-down with label and the others with sticker residue; interiors overall extremely clean with mild toning, a rare spot of foxing or small area of grime, and occasional light gutter wear; offsetting from plates with all but one partial tissue guard lacking.