Beschreibung:

SHARPE, Richard Bowdler (1847-1909). Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower-birds . London: Taylor and Francis for Henry Sotheran, 1891-1898.
SHARPE, Richard Bowdler (1847-1909). Monograph of the Paradiseidae, or Birds of Paradise, and Ptilonorhynchidae, or Bower-birds . London: Taylor and Francis for Henry Sotheran, 1891-1898. 2 volumes, large 2° (547 x 370mm). 79 hand-coloured lithgographic plates by W. Hart after his own work and that of J. Gould and J. G. Keulemans, printed by Mintern Brothers, occasional photographic and engraved illustrations in the text. (Light offsetting mainly confined to blanks facing plates, occasional very light spotting, last text leaf to volume I more heavily affected, some light creasing to front fly-leaves.) Contemporary green morocco gilt by Sotheran's, covers with wide elaborate gilt borders, spines with raised bands, gilt in compartments, gilt edges, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers (extremities rubbed, spines a fraction faded, lower corners to volume I slightly bumped). Provenance : Giovanni Trecanni Degli Alfieri (armorial bookplate and small discreet blindstamp on titles). FIRST AND ONLY EDITION of 'the last of the Fine Bird Books' ( Fine Bird Books , 1990, p.43). Sharpe appealed for subscribers for a monograph on 'the Avifauna of Paupasia' in the preface to Gould's Birds of New Guinea , a work he himself brought to completion in 1888, following Gould's death in 1881. Only three years later, the first part of the Paradiseidae was published. Some of the plates are printed from the stones used in the Birds of New Guinea but, as Sharpe's preface states, 'a great number of the species are here figured for the first time'. Fine Bird Books 1990 p.148 (erroneously calling for 70 plates and describing the format as 'Small folio'); Nissen IVB 865; Zimmer pp. 581-2. (2)