Histoire naturelle des mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles de France contenant des études générales sur leur anatomie et leur physiologie et la description particulière des genres, des espèces et des variétés.

Paris, J. B. Baillière, 1855. Three parts in three. 4to (25.2 x 16.1 cm). I: viii, 416 pp.; II: 646 pp.; Atlas: half-title, title page, 92 pp.; 54 finely chromolithographic plates. Contemporary uniform polished half calf over marbled boards. Spines with five raised bands and two black calf labels with gilt title. Edges speckled red. Christian Horace Bénédict Alfred Moquin-Tandon (1804-1863) is widely regarded as the father of modern malacology, and this work shows why. The plates do not only show shells, and living animals, but also radulae, genitalia and nervous systems, providing a taxonomic accuracy matched by none of his contemporaries. The plates were printed by Rémond using his beautiful, expensive colour-printing technology. This work was also published in a plain edition, which is more often seen, but also rare nonetheless. Provenance: the Robert Swift set (with a small round stamp, dated Jul 12 1864). Robert Eaglesfield Griffith Swift (1796-1872) was an American conchologist who lived on St. Thomas in the Caribbean. Thereafter the William Greene Binney set, with his small bookplate with address on the atlas front pastedown, his small blind-stamp in the title's top margins, and his initials, in gilt, on the spine foot. The American malacologist Binney (1833-1909) was, like Moquin-Tandon, principally interested in continental molluscs. And finally the R. I. Johnson set (early version of his simple name stamp in title page top margins). Richard Irwin Johnson (1925-2020) amassed one of the largest private malacological libraries in the world. On the first front free endpaper he wrote From the A. F. Gray Library - 1944. Arthur Fairfield Gray (1855-1944) was a lesser-known American malacologist, principally interested in local continental molluscs. Slight wear to spines and hinges. Text with some spotting, as usual, all plates, however, entirely spotless. The best copy we have seen. Caprotti II, p. 41 [204]; Nissen ZBI, 2880.