(Gray, John Edward)

Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall. Knowsley: (printed for private distribution), 1846



Folio (21 7/8 x 14 3/4 in.; 557 x 375 mm). 17 fine handcolored lithographed plates after Edward Lear by J. W. Moore and D. W. Mitchell (one), colored by Bayfield; scattered light spotting, plate 8 with marginal foxing. Original green cloth gilt, yellow-coated endpapers; recased, rubbed, extremities worn with minor restoration.

Fanny Augusta Stanley (presentation inscription) — Stanley Smith (his sale, Sotheby's London, 22 October 1998, lot 140) — Bonhams, 15 July 2004, lot 413 (undesignated consignor).

Ayer/Zimmer 273; Copenhagen/Anker 189; Fine Bird Books 79; McGill/Wood 368; Nissen, IVB 392; Nissen, ZBI 1691; Noakes 11i

First edition; presentation copy , inscribed by the Earl of Derby to his daughter on the front pastedown: "Fanny Augusta Stanley from her affectionate father, Derby."

Edward Lear lived intermittently at Knowsley between 1831 and 1837, working principally on drawings of the birds and animals in the menageries maintained by Edward Smith Stanley, thirteenth Earl of Derby (Lord Stanley when he first employed Lear). Lord Derby's private zoo was one of the largest in England, occupying 170 acres and holding at his death in 1851, 1,272 birds and 345 mammals. His commission allowed Lear to continue to draw from living specimens, as he has done for his own Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots. Lear often spoke of his years at Knowsley as the happiest time of his life. He was immensely popular with the Stanley children and grandchildren, and it was to amuse them that he began composing his "Nonsense Books."

Nine years after Lear moved to the Continent to pursue landscape painting, Lord Derby published a selection of his drawings—comprising nine birds, seven mammals, and a turtle—with accompanying text by J. E. Gray, Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum. Very rare: evidently only one hundred copies were printed.