Griffith Hughes | The natural history of Barbados, 1750, first edition, large paper copy

Griffith Hughes

The natural history of Barbados. London: Printed for the author, 1750

FIRST EDITION, LARGE PAPER COPY, folio (418 x 262 mm.), title-page, dedication leaf, list of subscribers, pasted-in slip to errata list on verso of final page of preface noting additional errors and adding seven additional names to the main list of subscribers, folding engraved general map, 30 plain engraved plates, contemporary calf, spine with raised bands in seven gilt compartments, red morocco label to second compartment, sprinkled edges, extremities slightly rubbed with upper board reinforced at hinge, spine starting to split, BUT INTERNALLY A FINE COPY

This book "is one to place beside Catesby's Natural History" (Hunt). The zoological and botanical plates are each dedicated to a patron or subscriber: large paper copies were supplied to about a fifth of the thousand or so subscribers to Hughes's project.

PROVENANCE:

John Gage, armorial bookplate visible beneath new pastedown

LITERATURE:

Great Flower Books, p. 60; Hunt 536; Nissen BBI 950; Sabin 33582; Wood, p. 393