Buller's Birds of New Zealand (1873)

Sir Walter Lawry Buller (1838-1906) 'A History of the Birds of New Zealand', London 1873. iii-xxiii, 384p, [5]p of reviews and notices concerning a proposed issue of Supplement, absent title and frontis, illus., 35 hand coloured plates by J. G. Keulemans. Royal quarto 31.5 cm, [page size], publisher's blue cloth with gilt illus. (takahe); gilt titled spine and some pages loose. In accompanying Solander case. The first edition of Buller's Birds of New Zealand was published in 1872-3 in an edition of 500 copies with only 35 hand coloured lithographic plates by J.G. Keulemans. The lithographic stones were then destroyed. The highly valuable first edition plates were hand coloured by Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe's three daughters, Misses Dora Louise, Daisy Madeliner, and Sylvia Rosamund, with some copied from G. Edwards. Keuleman's background details were also coloured. Sometimes no watercolour original exists where Keulemans drew his design directly on the stone and then coloured the first print himself as a guide to the hand colourers of further copies' (www.bowdlers.com, online resource).