VENDU
10 parts in 8 volumes 4to (256 x 185 mm) engraved portrait-frontispiece, 4 nn.ll., 2 folding typographical tables, 574 pp., 1 nn.l. (errata), 14 engraved folding plates for I; 2 nn.ll., 524 pp., 2 nn.ll. (avis au relieur and errata), 34 engraved folding plates for volume II; 2 nn.ll., XVI, 579, 2 pp. (errata) for volume III; 2 nn.ll., XX, 395 pp. (IV/1); 2 nn.ll., 502 pp., 1 nn.l. errata (IV/2) for volume IV; 2 nn.ll., 2 pp., (errata), IV, 395 pp., 8 engraved folding plates (V/1) ; 2 nn.ll., 412 pp. (V/2) for volume V; 4 nn.ll., XXIV, 427 pp. (pp. 423/24 omitted, not present in any other copy consulted) for volume VI; 2 nn.ll., II, VIII, 698 pp. for volume VII; XIV, X pp., 1 nn.l., 509 pp. for volume VIII. Contemporary marbled sheep, spine gilt with raised bands, red edges (some overall light wear, scratch to spine of volume V).
1 in stock
DSB, II, 286 ; Nissen, ZBI, 461 (erroneous plate collation) ; see Garrison-Morton, 308 & 472.
First collective edition.
Copy of the larger issue in quarto format. It is complete with an engraved portrait of the author, 2 typographical tables and 56 engraved natural history plates.
Charles Bonnet (1720-1793) is considered one of the fathers of modern biology. Bonnet first studied at the Geneva academy, where he was taught by the mathematicians Gabriel Cramer and Jean-Louis Calandrini. It was thanks to Cramer that he discovered the works of Newton, Leibniz and Malebranche. At the same time, he was also interested in entomology and plant physiology. He kept up a correspondence with Réaumur and was much appreciated by Cuvier. In 1740 he was made a correspondent of the Académie des Sciences in Paris following his experimental demonstration of aphid parthenogenesis, which Réaumur had tried in vain. Following his appointment as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1743, he became affiliated to most of the academies and learned societies of Europe, in particular those of Berlin, Stockholm, St Petersburg and Bologna.
His works include his writings on insectology and on organised bodies; volume V contains an important chapter on bees.
Bonnet “is considered one of the fathers of modern biology. He is distinguished for both his experimental research and his philosophy, which exerted a profound influence upon the naturalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” (DSB).
His Traité d’insectologie is a “pioneering work on experimental entomology [and] incorporates Bonnet’s most important discovery – parthenogenetic reproduction – based on his study of aphids… This work presents in tabular form a version of the ‘great chain of being'” (Garrison-Morton).
Good copy, complete with all its plates. Some occasional toning.
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