Greve, Wilhelm | Giants and dwarves

Greve, Wilhelm

Natuur- en Geschiedkundige Verhandeling, over de Reuzen en Dwergen … Amsterdam: J. C. Sepp & Zoon, 1818

8vo (216 x 140 mm). Handcolored engraved frontispiece of Frederika Ahrens and 5 handcolored engraved plates, double-sided folding engraved plate loosely laid in; a fine, bright copy. Contemporary green paper boards, abbreviated title printed on front cover within ornamental border; faded, spine rather sunned and abraded.

First edition of this review of giants and dwarves. Five of the plates depict sixteen unusually tall or short people, to scale in descending order of height. These include contemporary, historical, and legendary figures such as the biblical Goliath of Gath, the court dwarf of Kaiser Augustus, an 8-foot teenager (a young woman), the seventeenth-century salmon fisherman Gerrit Bastiaansz, etc. The folding plate records Bastiaansz's shoe sole size at ages 10 and 21, measuring 267 and 356 mm, respectively. Frederika Ahrens, featured in the frontispiece, was a stout young woman exhibited at the Amsterdam fair in 1818.

REFERENCE:

Landwehr, Studies in Dutch Books with Coloured Plates 70; Toole Stott II, 2711; Waller 3738 (with 5 plates); Wellcome III, p. 164