Moses Harris | The Aurelian, or natural history of English insects, London, 1766 [1773], calf

Moses Harris

The Aurelian: or, natural history of British insects, namely, moths and butterflies. Together with the plants on which they feed. London: for the author, 1766 [1773]

First edition, second issue, folio (470 x 282mm.), large paper copy, engraved vignette on title-page, engraved coloured schematic plate in preliminaries, 44 hand-coloured engraved plates (the final plate dated 1773, all watermarked Villedary), final letterpress index leaf, contemporary speckled calf, single gilt fillet border, lacking frontispiece portrait, occasional light offsetting from colouring, rebacked retaining original spine, spine repaired at head and foot

A beautiful record of English butterflies and moths, incorporating all the stages of the life cycle for each, positioned on the plants on which they feed and breed. Moses Harris (1730-1787) was an accomplished artist as well as entomologist, and this work contains details of more than forty butterflies and moths, along with some beetles and dragonflies.

Plates 17 and 35 are in their first state with the original dedications (for the second state of these plates, see lot 102).

LITERATURE:

ESTC T22753 (listing 3 copies); Lisney 230

PROVENANCE:

Montagu George Knight (1844-1914, great nephew of Jane Austen), of Chawton, armorial bookplate (listed in the Godmersham Park library catalogue; the library was moved to Chawton before Godmersham was sold in 1874)