The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne & A Garden Kalendar

Two volumes, thick quarto, many plates, illustrations, and textual vignettes, untrimmed, original lettered tissue-guards badly foxed and some spotting; a handsome set in the original stiff vellum boards, gilt-embossed hand-coloured coat-of-arms to front boards of both volumes, spines lettered in gilt, bookplates. A handsome set of this classic of both natural history and English literature-still one of the most readable of the world's great books. The work is richly illustrated by several of the great illustrators of the Edwardian era, including the famous bird-artist John Gerrard Keulemans. First published in 1789, the main book takes the form of a series of letters to the natural historian Thomas Pennant and the antiquary Daines Barrington, giving a remarkable account of the special habits of the animals he observed. The work "holds a unique position in English literature as the solitary classic of natural history. an invaluable record of the life work of a simple and refined man who succeeded in picturing himself as well as what he saw. The reader is carried along by his interest in the results of far-sighted observation; but, more than this, the reader imbibes the spirit of the writer which pervades the whole book and endears it to like-minded naturalists as a valued companion" (CHEL). This two-volume work also includes another of White's most cherished projects, the Naturalist's Kalendar, first published in 1795, two years after the author's death. He described the work as "somewhat of a Natural History of my native parish, an Annus Historio-Naturalis, comprising a journal for one whole year, and illustrated with large notes and observations." Today it is a remarkable testament to the slow accretion of climate changes with White's recorded dates for many seasonal events varying romt today;s by often a matter of weeks or months. This is the large-paper edition, limited to 160 copies, of which this is number 14. The work is signed by the editor and artists: Bowdler Sharpe, J.G. Keulemans, Herbert Railton, and Edmund J. Sullivan. . Provenance: Frank "Sam" Elliot Trigg (Sydney businessman and philanthropist; with bookplates).…