Aux Deux-Ponts, chez Sanson & Compagnie, 1785-1787.
18 volumes 12mo. I/ xxxiv pp., (1) l., 256 pp., (1) l., 12 plates out of text including 2 in color; II/ 264 pp., 11 plates out of text; III/ 305 pp., 6 plates out of text, 1 in color; IV/ 299 pp., 8 plates out of text; V/ 372 pp., 7 plates out of text; VI/ 199 pp., 153 pp. of table, 4 plates out of text; VII/ 336 pp. (bound at the time without p. 325), 3 plates out of text; VIII/ 339 pp., li pp. of table, 7 pp. of table, 5 plates out of text; IX/ 377 pp., 5 pp. of table, 6 plates out of text; X/ 246 pp., L pp. of table, 4 pp. of table, 3 plates; XI/ 400 pp., 8 pp. of table, 6 plates; XII/ 391 pp., 6 pp. of table, 4 plates out of text; XIII/ 370 pp., 6 pp. of table, 6 plates out of text; XIV/ 299 pp., xviii pp. 6 pp. table, 5 plates; XV/ 349 pp., 6 pp. of table, 7 plates out of text; XVI/ 258 pp., 3 pp. table, 7 plates; XVII/ 385 pp., (3) pp. of table, 10 plates; XVIII/ 110 pp., cxlix pp. of table, (3) pp., 4 plates out of text. A total of 114 plates. Contemporary marbled paper boards.
165 x 98 mm.
Complete collection of the 18 bird volumes published in this 1785-1787 edition, illustrated with 114 bird plates.
This major work by Buffon earned him admiration throughout Europe, and a celebrity equal to that of Voltaire and Rousseau.
Buffon conceived the plan for this grandiose work when he was appointed Intendant of the King’s Garden. He enlisted the help of a number of scientists in this vast encyclopedic undertaking, including Daubenton, Guineau de Montbéliard and Faujas de Saint-Fond.
As soon as the first volumes were published, “L’Histoire naturelle” was a resounding success. Buffon was called “the Pliny and Aristotle of France“, and a statue was erected to him in his lifetime.
The work rightly came to be seen as one of the monuments of modern science and the awakening of minds, in the same way as its contemporary “Encyclopedia“.
It made observational science fashionable, and immediately sparked intense development in the natural sciences.
“L’Histoire naturelle” unquestionably belongs to the Age of Enlightenment. Buffon was a precursor in many respects. He illuminated with penetrating insights the new avenues in which science after him was to embark: ecology, ethology, biogeography, paleontology, comparative anatomy, transformism. His ideas on Man and human species, whose uniqueness he affirmed, and his insistence on the role of time in the history of the earth and of life, made him a surprisingly “modern” mind.
Yves Laissus. Dix siècles de lumière par le livre. En Français dans le texte, n° 153.
Precious set of 18 volumes bound in elegant contemporary paper boards.
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