John Gould | The birds of Australia [suppressed parts], 1837-1838

John Gould

[The birds of Australia, and the adjacent islands. London: for the author, 1837-1838]

FIRST EDITION, 2 parts bound in one volume, folio (545 x 360mm.), 20 hand-coloured lithographed plates by and after John and Elizabeth Gould (one by and after Edward Lear), printed by Hullmandel, nineteenth-century half morocco gilt, without notice to subscribers, one plate with imprint either bound tightly or cropped, binding rubbed at edges

The suppressed early parts of what was to become Gould’s magnum opus, and the rarest of his works.

Gould made his first attempt at an avifauna of Australia before he had visited the country. Gould had written to Jardine in 1836, saying “would not a work of the Birds of Australia be interesting? … [I] have an idea of making it my next illustrative work”. Two parts were issued to subscribers in 1837 and 1838. Later in 1838 Gould sailed for Australia, and, upon his return, he effectively suppressed the two parts of the Birds of Australia already published and started again. Subscribers were encouraged to return the two parts in exchange for a discount on the new version.

In 1844 Gould wrote in a letter “In some instances I received those cancelled parts back from my Subscribers, and gave them the first part of the new Series in lieu of them. In others they were retained… the cancelled parts may, if you please, be bound together, and entitled “Illustrations of Birds from Australia”, and from the few copies in the hands of the Public, they will some day be of value, though, it is true, more to the Book-Collector, than the Naturalist”.

For more information about Gould, please refer to Lot 88.

LITERATURE:

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