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Captain William Cornwallis Harris. Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa, Delineated from Life...
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$478.00
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Description
"Narratives of the Most Stirring Interest"
Captain William Cornwallis Harris. Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa, Delineated from Life in Their Native Haunts, During a Hunting Expedition from the Cape Colony as Far as the Tropic of Capricorn, in 1836 and 1837. London: W. Pickering, 1840.First edition. Folio. 175 pages. Title page with colored lithograph. Thirty engraved tailpiece vignettes of various animal heads and skins.
Contemporary half morocco over marbled boards. Raised bands and leather title label to spine. Gilt-stamped animal designs to compartments. All edges gilt. Lengthy inked notations on front and rear endpapers by a previous owner of his own experiences in Africa. Bookseller's catalog description of this title pasted to front pastedown. Modern bookplate of previous owner to front free endpaper. Front joint broken, board still attached by binding cords. Rear hinge cracked. Unfortunately this copy is missing all of the thirty full-page plates. Internally sound; overall, a very good copy.
Captain William Cornwallis Harris' "magnificent volume is accordingly by no means what its exterior would seem to promise - a succession of poetical or pastoral pictures - but abounds everywhere with narratives of the most stirring interest, during the perusal of which, we expect to part company with our author, and behold him snapped up by a lion - pen, pencil, and all - or drowned in some swampy river, or hurled headlong down some treacherous precipice" (Littell's Living Age, Vol. 190). J. R. Abbey, in his bibliography, Travel, notes that the plates (here missing) "are not well drawn or colored; the thirty tailpieces, however, are of better quality and are probably not by Harris." From the Professor John Ralph Willis Collection of Rare Africana.
Abbey, 335. Gay, 3113. Littell, 531.
Auction Info
2010 February Signature Rare Books Auction #6038 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
February, 2010
11th-12th
Thursday-Friday
Bids + Registered Phone Bidders: 1
Lot Tracking Activity: N/A
Page Views: 1,229
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19.5% of the successful bid per lot.
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