Description

[004173] [White, Gilbert] The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, in the County of Southampton. ill. Grimm, S.H.; Mazell, Peter [Engraver] London: T. Bensley for B. White and Son, 1789. First Edition. 4to. Hardback. Good. [3], iv-v, [4], 2-440, 443-468pp, [14]. Original sprinkled calf boards, later rebacked, smooth back, divided into six panels by gilt roll, leather title label to second panel, remaining panels with central lozenge shaped gilt device, gilt roll to board edges, marbled endpapers

Outer joints with Japanese tissue repairs, rubbed to extremities, corners lightly bumped, some light browning internally, light browning and foxing to plates, with offsetting from plates, sporadic pencilled notes, a couple of old bookseller descriptions pasted on to front marbled endpaper, with a couple of loose newspaper cuttings laid in, but generally fairly clean

With the nine plates / vignettes as called for, including two folding. With the errata leaf. Page 292 misnumbered as 262, and 398 misnumbered as 389; the text is complete, despite the pagination

The plates were drawn by Grimm and engraved by Peter Mazell (see Alexander, A Biographical Dictionary of British and Irish Engravers, 1714-1820, pages 601-603. The four figures in the folding frontispiece have been identified as (left to right): The Rev. Robert Yalden, Vicar of Newton Valence; Mr Etty, brother of the Vicar of Selborne; Mrs Yalden [later Mrs Benjamin White]; and Mr Thomas Holt White, Gilbert White’s brother [from Rothschild]

The first edition of White’s epistolary classic, often reprinted

Freeman 3975; Martin, pages 90-97; Mullens and Swann, page 633; Nissen IVB 985; Rothschild 2550