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John Gould, A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains, London: John Gould, 1832

1st edition, first issue with the backgrounds uncoloured, dedication leaf, subscriber's list and plate list, 80 hand-coloured lithographed plates by Elizabeth Gould after sketches by John Gould, printed by Charles Hullmandel; contemporary quarter leather bound with leather corners and gilt text on the spine with 5 raised bands, top edges gilt, pale primrose surface-paper heavy stock endpapers.
56.5 x 39 x 5 cm

The first of Gould's great folio works, based upon a collection of birds acquired by him whilst acting as Superintendent of the Ornithological Collection of the Zoological Society. This is the first edition, first issue with the backgrounds uncoloured ("You will probably recollect that in my first work... neither the plants or Backgrounds were colored; In order to render the Series of my Publications complete... I have had those parts colored in the few copies I have left...." Gould to Lord Derby, letter dated 5 Feb. 1844)

"India, and especially its central regions, presents a field the richness of whose stores at once invites and repays the industry of the naturalist... the fortunate possession of a valuable collection from the Himalayan mountains, has enabled the author to lay this Century of hitherto unfigured birds before the public..." (Preface). The subscribers included Audubon, Cuvier, Jardine, Latham, Lear, Selby, Swainson and Yarrell.

In 1828, Gould had been appointed "bird-stuffer" to the Zoological Society and when "a collection of birds from the Himalayan mountains arrived at the society's museum Gould conceived the idea of publishing a volume of imperial folio sized hand-coloured lithographs of the eighty species. Gould's friend and mentor N. A. Vigors supplied the text. Elizabeth Gould made the drawings and transferred them to the large lithographic stones. Having failed to find a publisher, Gould undertook to publish the work himself; it appeared in twenty monthly parts, four plates to a part, and was completed ahead of schedule. With this volume Gould initiated a format of publishing that he was to continue for the next fifty years." (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The list of subscribers runs to 298 names headed by the King and Queen and including John James Audubon, the naturalist Sir William Jardine, the novelist Frederick Marryat, and Edward Lear.

In her acclaimed biography of Edward Lear, Vivien Noakes remarks that Gould took the idea for the folio format of his own books from Lear's Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots, which started to appear in parts in 1830. However, Lear never finished that project "because his subscribers were so slow in paying that he could no longer afford his printer or colourer." (Noakes in ODNB)

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