[Rarebooks] FS: Wood's Index Testaceologicus

[John Howell]

Offered today: William Wood's Index Testaceologicus.  

WOOD, William (1774-1857).  Index Testaceologicus; or A Catalogue of Shells, British and Foreign, Arranged According to the Linnean System with the Latin and English Names, References to Authors, and Places Where Found.  Illustrated with 2300 Figures.  London: Printed for W. Wood, 1828.  WITH: Wood.  Supplement to the Index Testaceologicus; Or a Catalogue of Shells, British and Foreign.  Illustrated with 480 Figures.  London: Printed for W. Wood, 1828.  WITH: WOOD.  A List of the Plates of the “Index Testaceologicus,” With the Lamarckian Names Adapted to the Figures in Each Plate.  [London]: Printed by Richard Taylor, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, n. d.  

8vo.  8 1/8 x 5 3/8 inches.  a8, b4, B-P8, Q2, A3, B-D8, E6, B-E4, F1.  xxii, (2), 212; iv, (60); 34 pp.  38 engraved hand-colored plates in the Index, 8 in the Supplement; text clean, unmarked, initial and final blanks foxed, minor offsetting from the plates, minor toning.  Full leather, gilt rules and blind stamping on both covers, black leather spine label, spine ruled and decorated in gilt, marbled end papers, edges speckled red, yellow ribbon; binding square and tight, spine and edges rubbed, leather scuffed.  Ownership stamps of Alfred E. Fennings on second initial blank, and J. C. Fennings on title page of the first work.  Ownership signature of “Helen Moncrieffe, 1832,” on second and third title pages.  Ye Olde Book Shoppe, Southhampton, ticket on front paste-down. Receipt from Norman Colbeck, Bournemouth, “For the Mary Helen Dawson collection” and marked in ink “with compliments, Mr. Colbeck.”  Also laid in is an envelope, postmarked Feb 1, 1953, from Marks & Co., Booksellers, and addressed to Mary Helen Dawson; inside is a handwritten letter to Mary Helen Dawson from Mark Cohen of Marks & Co., Booksellers, dated January 30th 1953.  Good.  

$ 850

SECOND EDITION, corrected and revised.  William Wood was an English surgeon, zoologist, and entomologist.  This is Wood’s most important work.  It contains more than 2,700 miniature hand-colored engravings of shells from around the world.  It is illustrated with miniature figures of the species drawn from original specimens in a number of private collections.  It was one of the best-known of the popular books of the first quarter of the nineteenth century about shells.  References: Nissen, ZBI, 4459; Dance, A History of Shell Collecting (1986), 83f.; “William Wood,” DNB, online.

This copy was the gift of Mark Cohen, of Marks & Co., Booksellers, 84, Charing Cross Road, London, to Mary Helen Dawson, wife of Glen Dawson, co-owner of Dawson’s Book Shop, Los Angeles, from the 1940s to the 1990s.  Mary Helen was an avid shell collector and the Dawson family frequently spent their summers in Baja California camping and collecting shells.  

A fuller, illustrated, description for this book can be seen as a PDF by following this link on my website: http://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/home//woodmarkcohenltr.pdf

Terms of Sale: Offered subject to prior sale.  20% trade discount allowed.  Call or email to reserve.  I accept PayPal, personal check, or credit card.  Postage will be $ 4.00 Media Mail within the continental United States.  International postage at cost.  

John Howell

info at johnhowellforbooks.com

310 367-9720

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