In its original wrappers

CUVIER, Georges L.C., Baron.

Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles de Quadrupèdes.

Paris: Deterville, 1812.

1st Edition. Soft cover. Near Fine. Item #002331

4to (275 x 220 mm). 4 volumes. Including half-titles to each volume, large folding hand-coloured engraved map to vol. I and in total 154 engraved plates. All leaves untrimmed. Original publisher's blue wrappers with printed paper label to spines (some marginal chipping and cracking of wrappers at spine). Internally virtually unspotted and unmarked, occasional very light age-toning. Some warping to book blocks, occasional soiling to paper edges. In custom-made slip case. An outstanding, unsophisticated and crisp set. ----

Horblit 20b; Nissen ZBI 1011; Norman 566 - FIRST EDITION. "Cuvier was considered by the public to be a bit of a wizard, a man who had brought to life animals that had long since become extinct... Cuvier knew how to make great strides in studying these creatures and could endow this study with new accuracy. His famous paleontological reconstructions had the living being as their point of departure... before witnesses he removed from a stone block the marsupial bones of a small opossum fossil, bones whose existence he had surmised on the basis of the conformation of the visible part of the skeleton. As early as 1804 Cuvier had the idea of reconstructing the musculature of extinct animals from imprints left by the muscles on the bones; then he merely had to imagine the skin over the muscles and the animal was practically brought back to life" (DSB).

Sold