Bibliographia Zoologiae et Geologiae. A General Catalogue of all Books, Tracts, and Memoirs on Zoology and Geology. Vol. I-IV

Description:

First edition. This four-volume catalogue, published between 1848 and 1854, was compiled ‘during the leisure moments of a life of almost incessant scientific research’, by the eminent Swiss-born American systematist, geologist and palaeontologist Louis Agassiz (1807–73). The bibliography was corrected, enlarged and edited by the English geologist, ornithologist, naturalist and systematist, Hugh Edwin Strickland (1811–53). It was one of the most comprehensive bibliographic works of its time. It provides an extensive list of the zoological and geological literature available before publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). Today the bibliography offers a map of the intellectual landscape that influenced early evolutionary theory and other scientific advancements. Peter Barnard, stated 2003 ‘as a survey of the early literature its breadth is still staggering, and it is hard to find anything that was missed’, Archives of natural history Vol. 30.

Condition

4 vols, 8vo, later library half leather, scuffed, raised bands and gilt title to spines, top edges gilt; paper a little browned to margins; short tear to edge of a few pages at the start of Vol. II. Withdrawn from an in institutional library with a few neat ink stamps. Good set.