British fossil Brachiopoda Volume I. [Including] Part I. A monograph of the British Tertiary Brachiopoda. [AND] Part II. A monograph of the British Cretaceous Brachiopoda. [AND] Part. III. A monograph of the British Oolitic and Liassic Brachiopoda [AND] Appendices, index.

London, The Palaeontographical Society, 1851-1854. 4to. 409 [136, 23, 117, 100, 30, (iii)] pp. (including the index); 68 [56, 1, 8, 0, 3, 0] text figures, 42 [9, 2, 12, 19 (numbered A, I-XVIII), 0] lithographed plates. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards, spine with five raised bands, gilt bordered, and gilt titles. Marbled endpapers. Top edge gilt. = Between 1851 and his death Thomas Davidson (1817-1885) produced an enormous monograph on the British Brachiopoda in the Palaeontographical Society's monograph series (the last volume being published in 1886). In total six volumes were published, of which this is the rare complete first. It includes the description of the brachiopod anatomy by Richard Owen, the description of the shell morphology by William Benjamin Carpenter (1813-1885), the classification of the Brachiopoda (by Davidson himself), and the Pleistocene to Jurassic (perhaps late Triassic) brachiopod species, many of which were new, also by Davidson himself. The whole volume consists of Palaeontographical Society memoirs 10, 15-17, 21, and 26. Other parts in this series deal with Palaeozoic Brachiopoda. Mounted on the front pastedown an armorial bookplate of Thomas Baron Brassey, First Earl of Brassey (1836-1918). Brassey was a British Liberal Party politician, Governor of Victoria and founder of The Naval Annual (Wikipedia). Some rubbing to the boards and spine; some scattered foxing, mainly to several plate margins, and a text section in part III. Otherwise a very good copy in an attractive binding. Nissen, ZBI 1047.