London: Author, 1840-1869. Folio,

A COMPLETE SET OF THE AUSTRALIAN GOULD FOLIOS. AU$1,125,00

BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. Eight volumes.

BIRDS. Gould, John. The Birds of Australia, with Supplement. London: Author, 1840-1869. Folio, eight volumes, 681 handcoloured lithographs, including three double-page lithographs, by Elizabeth Gould (84), Waterhouse Hawkins (one), Edward Lear (one) and H. C. Richter (595). The first seven volumes in a magnificent contemporary green hard-grained morocco by Clyde with the Supplement uniformly bound by Clyde (?), all edges gilt. A few light spots and some plates tightly trimmed, some endleaves discoloured; an outstanding set with the plates clean, crisp and beautifully coloured, the binding in near mint condition and unsunned.

A FINE SET OF AUSTRALIA'S MOST FAMOUS BOOK.

John Gould collected the material for his The Birds of Australia on journeys through Australia in 1838-1840: "I was naturally desirous of turning my attention to the Ornithology of some other region; and a variety of opportune and concurring circumstances induced me to select that of Australia, the birds of which, although invested with the highest degree of interest, had been almost entirely neglected. In the absence, then, of any general work on the Birds of Australia, the field was comparatively a new one, and of no ordinary degree of interest, from the circumstance of its being one of the finest possessions of the British Crown, and from its natural productions being as remarkable for the anomalous nature of their forms, as for their beauty, and the singularity of their habits." (Gould Preface). The birds of Australia is John Gould's greatest contribution to ornithology and is much more than just a magnificent bird book. Gould spent almost two years in Australia and over his working life consolidated the history and science of Australian ornithology, much of it through his magnum opus.

PROVENANCE: Almost certainly a subscriber's copy. From the library of the bibliophile, member of the Roxburghe Club and art collector Charles Butler (1822-1910) with his contemporary bookplate on the front paste-down of volume one. Butler is mentioned in Gould's List of the subscribers and possessors (London, 1870) as the owner of all of Gould's works published to date but is overlooked in the Subscriber's list in volume one.

Anker 174-179; Fine Bird Books (reprint) p. 101; Nissen 370; Sauer 9, 18; Whittell pp. 287-288; Wood p. 365; Zimmer pp. 225-259.

with

CANCELLED PARTS. single volume.

BIRDS. Gould, John. The birds of Australia and the adjacent islands. London: Author, 1837-1838. Folio, unpaginated, 20 handcoloured lithographs by Elizabeth Gould except plate ten which is by Edward Lear. Nineteenth century half morocco and marbled endpapers, hinges strengthened, the title "Birds of Australia Gould" on upper board, the printed wrappers of part one retained with the plate list for part two pasted beneath the plate list for part one. Some plates with small tears expertly repaired, the Norfolk Island Kaka expertly repaired with small loss to image, some marks throughout.

'CANCELLED PARTS', THE RAREST OF ALL GOULD FOLIOS.

John Gould halted publication of The birds of Australia and the adjacent islands when he embarked on his trip to Australia in 1838. He returned in 1840, cancelled the two parts already published and began his monumental The birds of Australia with the final part of the Supplement published in 1869. Hence this work is commonly known as the 'Cancelled Parts'.

The Cancelled Parts is substantially the rarest Gould folio and a work of historical, bibliographic and ornithological significance. Nine plates were subsequently used for Birds of Australia, making eleven plates unique to the Cancelled Parts. Of the thirty plates used for Gould's A monograph of Macropodidae, or family of Kangaroos all were used, fifteen with revisions, for The Mammals of Australia. McEvey records only ten institutional copies of Cancelled Parts and a part two in a private collection (McEvey Appendix C), very few sets are held privately.

" Although only two Cancelled Parts appeared they are importantly ornithologically, not merely historically, because they contain the original descriptions of, or original reference to, Gould's names for four species; Malurus elegans, Dacelo cervina, Pitta vigorsii, and Myzomela nigra, and the original name for the generic name Chlamydera... It is of interest to note that Gould, after returning from Australia, made no reference to the Cancelled Parts in his prospectus of published works. So far as he was concerned, no doubt, they were simply cancelled. They represented, ornithologically, a false start that was superceded by the later Birds of Australia. It is to the later taxonomic ornithologist, the ornithological historian, the fine book collector, the lover of Fine Prints, and the art historian of natural history that the Cancelled Parts are of particular interest, and naturally enough, it is possible that once cancelled the parts may have been regarded as dispensable. In any case, they are now generally recognized as the rarest of Gould's work... The Synopsis was the seed and the Cancelled Parts were the first shoot of what blossomed as Gould's greatest work, so regarded by Gould himself, and by others, The Birds of Australia ... and the magnificence of the latter cannot be fully appreciated without acquaintance with, and understanding of, the rare Cancelled Parts ..." (McEvey p. 4-6)

Fine Bird Books (reprint) p. 101; Nissen IVB 369; Sauer 6; Wood p. 364; Zimmer p. 253-254. For the best account see Allan McEvey's Appendices to the 1979 Lansdowne facsimile.

with

MAMMALS OF AUSTRALIA. Three volumes.

Gould, John. The mammals of Australia. London: Author, 1845-1853. Folio, three volumes, 182 handcoloured plates and accompanying text. Contemporary full scarlet morocco gilt, all edges gilt, a handsome set.

A SUPERB SET OF THE GREATEST MAMMAL FOLIO EVER PUBLISHED.

Mammals of Australia is the finest book on the subject and, although slightly overshadowed by his monumental Birds of Australia, is a work of great beauty and scientific importance. It contains some of Australia's most famous and recognisable images.

Much as been made of Gould the entrepreneur but Gould's reputation, within and outside Australia, rests with his science. His descriptions of the Australian mammal fauna is almost as important as his contribution to the Australian avifauna. In Mammals of Australia he describes 45 species for the first time. Oldfield Thomas, in his Catalogue of Marsupialia and Monotremata in the collections of the British Museum 1888, wrote " This comparative richness of the British Museum, both in specimens and types, is largely due to the accessions of the collections of Australian mammals formed by the late Mr Gould, which contained not only a complete set of the types but also fine series of the mammals he obtained".

The impact of white settlement on Australian mammals has been disastrous. 26% of all mainland mammal species have become extinct and many species are exceptionally rare and survive by a thread. Of all the mammalian extinctions none is better known than the demise of the Thylacine. Gould predicted troubles for the Thylacine. "When the comparatively small island of Tasmania becomes more densely populated, and its primitive forests are intersected with roads from the eastern to the western coast, the numbers of this singular animal will speedily diminish, extermination will have its full sway, and it will then, like the wolf in England and Scotland, be recorded as an animal of the past". Gould was of course a man of his times. He then tempers this regret with typical Victorian pragmatism "although this will be a source of much regret, neither the shepherd nor the farmer can be blamed for wishing to rid the island of so troublesome a creature. A price is already put on the head of the native Tiger, as it is called; but the fastness of the Tasmanian rocky gullies, clothed with impenetrable forests, will for the present, preserve it from destruction".

Macropodidae is second to Birds of Australia and Adjacent Isles (the so-called Cancelled Parts) as the rarest of all Gould folios. He intended to produce this monograph in three parts but abandoned publication after the second part. As with the Cancelled Parts he re-used some plates in the major work but with Macropodidae only 15 plates were altered for Mammals of Australia. The other 15 plates were used but were significantly reworked.

BM(NH) p. 701; Nissen ZBI 1661 and 1662; Sauer 11 and 14; Wood p. 365.

with

MACROPODS. Single volume.

Gould, John. A monograph of the Macropodidae, or family of kangaroos. London: Author, 1841-1842. Folio, two parts, 30 handcoloured plates and accompanying text. Early half morocco, a few blemishes to the plates and text of the first part, otherwise a fine crisp set.

Macropodidae is second only to Birds of Australia and Adjacent Isles (the so-called Cancelled Parts) as the rarest of all Gould folios. He intended to produce this monograph in three parts but abandoned publication after the second part. As with the Cancelled Parts he re-used some plates in the major work but with Macropodidae only 15 plates were left unchanged for Mammals of Australia. The other 15 plates were used but significantly reworked.

"I had fine sport with these interesting animals; they are a most remarkable tribe of quadrupeds many possessing extreme beauty. I made it a point to collecting all the information I could respecting them and have been very successful in so doing, considering the meagre accounts that are before the public. I have determined to publish a Monograph of the family with figures of every species as large as the size (folio) will admit ..." (letter from Gould to Jardine September 1840).

There are very few colour plate mammal monographs and 'Macropodidae' is the very first folio, preceding Audubon and Bachman's Viviparous Quadrupeds Of North America, 1845-1848 and incorporated into John Gould's monumental three volume Mammals of Australia, 1845-1863. The other great mammal folio is Daniel Giraud Elliot's single volume Monograph of the Felidae, 1883. There are two smaller format colour plate monographs, G. R. Waterhouse The natural history of Marsupialia or pouched animals, 1841 and is two volume natural history of the mammalia, 1846-1848.

Sauer 11; Ferguson 3197: Wood p. 365.