The Entomological Magazine. Vol. I-V

Description:

First edition. All published. Very scarce early entomological journal; a short-lived forerunner of The Entomologist. Edited anonymously by Edward Newman (his names appears following the 'Valedictory Address' in Vol. V), with contributions by John Curtis, James Charles Dale, Edward Doubleday, Alexander Henry Haliday (notably 'An essay on the classification of the parasitic Hymenoptera ... Of Britain which correspond with the Ichneumones minuti of Linnaeus'), William Edward Shuckard, James Francis Stephens, William John Swainson, George Robert Waterhouse, Francis Walker (notably 'Monographia Chalciditum'), John Obadiah Westwood and others.

Horn Schenkling 16013.

Condition

5 vols, 8vo, cont. half calf, rubbed/lightly scuffed, raised bands to spines with gilt tooling to bands, marbled boards, endpapers and edges. Some offsetting/foxing to a few of the plates. Vol. V lacks pp 411-416 [part of Doubleday's 'Communications on the Natural History of North America'] but with duplicate pp 419-424 bound in their place; also lacking Plate II (Vol. I), 'Ephemera marginata', but with a photocopy of the plate loosely inserted. An uncalled for and un-numbered plate of Lepidoptera mouthparts (which we have seen in other sets of this work) is bound in its place. Good. Bookplates of British lepidopterists J.M. Chalmers-Hunt (1920-2004) and Paul Sokoloff (1946-2012). Includes a letter dated June 1978 from natural history bookseller, D.B. Janson, accepting Chalmers-Hunt's offer of £120 for this set of the Entomological Magazine. Chalmer's Hunt's pencil note to the verso endpaper records the purchase, with the note that Janson's grandfather bought the set at auction in 1890, and it had remained in the Janson family for 88 years.