| Item Description: | Author identified in Barbier, Dict. ouvr. anon.
Michael Laird, bookseller, description: 16.3 x 9.5 cm. viii, 280 pp. Quire A printed on blue paper. One woodcut vignette, plus woodcut tailpieces throughout (one leaf partially detached, small hole from natural paper flaw in one leaf). Bound in contemporary mottled calf, covers ruled in blind and board edges ruled in gilt, spine gilt with gilt title to red morocco lettering piece, marbled endpapers, red edges (binding scuffed and rubbed revealing boards at corners, small wormhole to spine). Very good antiquarian condition. Highly interesting, now little known manual on domestic pets, informing the reader on their upbringing, nourishment, anatomy, diseases, and joys of ownership. Cats, dogs, squirrels, monkeys, parrots, blackbirds, starlings, canaries, nightingales, linnets, goldfinches, and bullfinches are the focus of one chapter each in this scientific and poetic manual extolling the virtues of Man's Best Friend. The work is arranged in eight chapters, one for each of the four quadrupeds and eight birds, all of which were frequently found in the houses of Paris and provincial capitals, as the author notes in his Preface. The chapters on Dogs and Monkeys are lengthy, extending to five parts each, attesting to the considerable popularity of these animals in the aristocracy. Doctor Pierre Joseph Buc'hoz (1731-1807) was an accomplished naturalist who wrote prolifically on plant life, minerals, and the animal kingdom. His "Dictionnaire veterinaire: et des animaux domestiques" (6 vols., 1770-1775) and "Médecine des animaux domestiques" (1783) are still of value. Barbier IV, 747. |
|---|