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The Dodo and its Kindred:

The Dodo and its Kindred:

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The Dodo and its Kindred: or the history, affinities, and osteology of the dodo, solitaire, and other extinct birds of the islands Mauritius, Rodriguez and Bourbon.

by STRICKLAND, Hugh Edwin, & Alexander Gordon Melville

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  • Hardcover
  • first
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About This Item

London: Reeve, Benham, and Reeve,, 1848. The first scientific monograph on the dodo with an excellent familial provenance First edition of this finely illustrated work. This copy has a superb provenance: with the bookplate of naturalist Sir William Jardine and his daughter Catherine Dorcas Maule Strickland, the author's wife. Strickland provides a comprehensive history and external description of the dodo, while the physician Melville analyzed the anatomy. A sparkling copy, rarely found in such collectible condition. With this important rediscovery of the extinct and largely forgotten dodo, Strickland set out to prove anthropogenic species loss and declared that "these singular birds... furnish the first clearly attested instances of extinction of organic species through human agency" (p. 5). To produce this monograph and support his claim about the reality of the bird Strickland gathered "historical, pictorial and anatomical evidence" (Barrow, p. 54). He reviewed fifteen original and independent accounts of the bird and went on to analyse five oil paintings of the species. Finally, he "turned to a discussion of the bird's meager surviving fragments: a foot in the British Museum, a cranium in the Gottorf Museum in Copenhagen, and a desiccated head and foot in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The latter two fragments were all that remained of a once complete specimen that had decayed over the course of a century and barely escaped destruction during a bout of spring cleaning at the museum" (ibid.). The Dodo and its Kindred shows the "present state of the knowledge of the Didinae, in order to remove the many erroneous statements which are current, and to restore the lost organisms to their rank in the natural system" (publisher's catalogue). In Victorian fiction the dodo emerges most famously in Alice in Wonderland (1865), employed by Carroll as a caricature of himself. Hugh Edwin Strickland (1811–1853) was a natural historian, geologist, ornithologist, and member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science committee alongside Charles Darwin and Richard Owen. Strickland found his wife, Catherine Dorcas Maule (1825–1888), through his interest in natural history. He met "Sir William Jardine, bt, at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at Glasgow in 1840, having previously corresponded with him on ornithological topics. On 23 July 1845 he married Jardine's second daughter, Catherine Dorcas Maule. She assisted both her father and her husband with drawings of birds, some reproduced anastatically in Jardine's Contributions to Ornithology (1848–53). Strickland was fatally wounded when struck by a train while geologizing near Clarborough Tunnel in 1853" (ODNB). Prince Albert, Sir William Jardine, the ornithologist John Gould, natural history artist Prideaux John Selby, engraver William Home Lizars, and cartographer John Arrowsmith are found in the small list of 124 subscribers. Folio. Original light blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, gilt stamp of dodo on front cover and Rodrigues solitaire on back cover, spine and covers elaborately stamped in blind, yellow surface-paper endpapers, top edge gilt. Housed in a dark blue cloth flat-back box by the Chelsea Bindery. With hand-coloured lithographed frontispiece of a dodo by Vincent Brooks after Roelandt Savery, heightened with gum arabic, and 17 lithographed and anastatically-printed plates, including on folding and another hand-coloured, wood-engraved illustrations in the text. A few minor marks to covers, scattered foxing, text block cracked between pp. 50-1. A splendid copy. Fine Bird Books, p. 145; Nissen IVB 900. Mark V. Barrow, Nature's Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology, 2011.

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Details

Bookseller
Peter Harrington GB (GB)
Bookseller's Inventory #
159573
Title
The Dodo and its Kindred:
Author
STRICKLAND, Hugh Edwin, & Alexander Gordon Melville
Book Condition
Used
Binding
Hardcover
Place of Publication
London: Reeve, Benham, and Reeve,
Date Published
1848

Terms of Sale

Peter Harrington

All major credit cards are accepted. Both UK pounds and US dollars (exchange rate to be agreed) accepted. Books may be returned within 14 days of receipt for any reason, please notify first of returned goods.

About the Seller

Peter Harrington

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2006
London

About Peter Harrington

Since its establishment, Peter Harrington has specialised in sourcing, selling and buying the finest quality original first editions, signed, rare and antiquarian books, fine bindings and library sets. Peter Harrington first began selling rare books from the Chelsea Antiques Market on London's King's Road. For the past twenty years the business has been run by Pom Harrington, Peter's son.

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Cloth
"Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
Cracked
In reference to a hinge or a book's binding, means that the glue which holds the opposing leaves has allowed them to separate,...
Top Edge Gilt
Top edge gilt refers to the practice of applying gold or a gold-like finish to the top of the text block (the edges the pages...
First Edition
In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
Text Block
Most simply the inside pages of a book. More precisely, the block of paper formed by the cut and stacked pages of a book....
Spine
The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
Folio
A folio usually indicates a large book size of 15" in height or larger when used in the context of a book description. Further,...
Gilt
The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
Fine
A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
Bookplate
Highly sought after by some collectors, a book plate is an inscribed or decorative device that identifies the owner, or former...

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