Beschreibung:

GOULD, JOHN and NICHOLAS AYLWARD VIGORS. A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains. London: [published by the author, 1831-] 1832. Russia, worn, spine defective, joints split, reinforced at inner hinges, some light mostly marginal spotting, 10 plates (no.s 20, 21, 24, 33, 34, 38, 49, 69, 70 and 71) and numerous text leaves more severely spotted, vertical crease to plate 72, plates 33 and 48 very slightly creased, minor dust soiling to upper margins of 5 or 6 plates and a few text leaves including title and dedication leaves, a few images faintly offset to text . Second issue with the backgrounds colored, 80 hand-colored lithographed plates by Elizabeth Gould after sketches by Gould, printed by C. Hullmandel. Nissen IVB 374; Anker 168; Fine Bird Books p. 77; Wood p. 364; Zimmer p. 251; Sauer 1. GOULD'S FIRST BOOK, issued to 298 subscribers (the number later reached 335) in 20 monthly parts, and the prototype in format and method of publication - both adopted from Edward Lear's Parrots , published from 1830 to 1832 - for Gould's later works. No publisher had been willing to assume the risks of publishing such an expensive work by an unknown bird enthusiast, forcing Gould to assume the publication costs himself; the venture proved so successful that all his later works were published in the same manner, providing Gould the added benefit of maintaining direct control over all aspects of the operation. Based on a collection of bird skins from the Indian hill regions recently acquired by the Zoological Society, the first of any importance to arrive in Europe, the Century was "the most accurately illustrated work on foreign ornithology published up to that date"--Jackson, Bird Illustrators: Some Artists in Early Lithography (London 1975), p. 41.