Beschreibung:

HARRIS, Moses (1730-c.1788). The Aurelian: or, Natural History of English Insects; namely, Moths and Butterflies . London: J. Robson '1778' [c.1811-1814 (English title watermarked '1811' and some plates watermarked '1810')]. 2° (425 x 276mm). English and French titles. Hand-coloured engraved plate with oval vignette by and after Harris, hand-coloured engraved diagrammatic key-plate and 44 plates numbered I-XLIV, heightened with gum arabic, by and after Harris, tissue guards. Text printed in English and French in 2 columns, leaf e2 'Table of the Terms' bound in after index. (Occasional very light spotting, some light offsetting on text, a few marks on English title, small worm-track on front free endpaper and margin of English title.) Contemporary English straight-grained red morocco gilt [front flyleaf watermarked '1815'], boards with broad foliate gilt border enclosed by 2 broad foliate borders in blind, gilt- and blind-tooled cornerpieces, gilt turn-ins, gilt spine, lettered and decorated with foliate tools, gilt edges (minor rubbing, scuffing and marking, corners a little bumped). Provenance : [sale, Sotheby's London, 27 June 1996, lot 34]. Second edition, third issue. A fresh copy in a contemporary binding of The Aurelian by Harris, 'one of the most outstanding authors of entomological literature during the eighteenth century' (Lisney). Harris drew from live specimens and his plates are amongst the most beautiful of their kind, showing dorsal and ventral views of all the subjects, together with various stages of development (egg, caterpillar, chrysalis), each with their preferred food. The Aurelian was first published in book form in 1766 and remained in print for many years after its author's death, with a fourth edition (edited by J.O. Westwood, Hope professor of zoology at Oxford University) published in 1840; the editions it passed through complicate the bibliography of the title, and, as Lisney notes, it 'frequently occur[s] as made-up copies'. This copy is the third issue of the second edition (dated by Lisney as c.1814), with plates XXXVIII and XXXIX re-engraved, but does not contain the engraved frontispiece called for by Lisney in all issues of the first and second editions. However, it does include an oval cartouche plate not called for by Lisney, which is possibly an early state without text of the title employed for the third edition of c. 1794, which did not include the frontispiece. BM(NH) II, p.778; Brunet III, 50; Lisney 233; Nissen ZBI 1835.