图片文件尺寸 : 4255 x 5369px
MOFFETT, THOMAS. 1553–1604.:Insectorum sive Minimorum animalium theatrum. London: Thomas Cotes for William Hope, 1634.
Folio (297 x 194 mm). Large woodcut vignette on title, numerous woodcut illustrations (including 4 unnumbered full-pages at end). Contemporary calf, rebacked. Covers scuffed, light soiling around edges of title, scattered browning and spotting.
Provenance: Arthur Hugh Smith-Barry [Anglo-Irish Baron, 1843-1925] (Marbury Hall bookplates); Oliver Howard [English bookseller and Managing Director of Bernard Quaritch, 1905-1961] (bookplate).
FIRST EDITION of \”the first book about insects published in Britain\” (Salmon, Aurelian Legacy, p 95). Compiled in the late 16th century by Moffett, who is often mistakenly said to have used a microscope in his observations, but in fact made the highly accurate woodcuts with the naked eye. Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne published the work posthumously from the manuscript, which is preserved today in the British Library. The illustration of the American Swallowtail on p 98 is the first printed representation of an American butterfly. There are three variant imprints, this example with p 48 incorrectly numbered 52, but these variants do not indicate a chronology — simply that the edition was shared among booksellers. Garrison-Morton-Norman 288; Lisney 3; Nissen ZBI 2852; STC 17993a.
