Say, Thomas

American Entomology, or Descriptions of the Insects of North America. Illustrated by Coloured Figures from Drawings Executed from Nature. [Philadelphia:] Published for the Philadelphia Museum by Samuel Augustus Mitchell (William Brown, printer), 1824–1828



3 volumes, 8vo in half-sheets (9 1/8 x 5 5/8 in.; 233 x 143 mm). Additional engraved pictorial title after C. A. Lesueur, 54 handcolored engraved plates after Lesueur, T. R. Peale, W. W. Wood, H. Bridport, and C. Tiebout  by Tiebout, G. Lang, and Longacre; some light offsetting, occasional foxing. American straight-grain green morocco, covers with an elaborate gilt-tooled frame, spines gilt in six compartments, board edges and turn-ins gilt, marbled endpapers, edges marbled en suite; extremities a bit rubbed, a few very light scratches to covers.

Nathan Appleton (armorial bookplate)

Bennett 95; LSU/McIlhenny 825; Nissen, ZBI 3612; Sabin 77370. Cf. Patricia Tyson Stroud, Thomas Say: New World Naturalist (Philadelphia, 1992), chapter 9, "American Entomology"

condition is described in cataloguing.
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First edition of the first American entomology and the first book on insects published in the Unted States. A fine copy in a spectacular, near-contemporary American binding, very likely by Lippincott.