René Richard Castel (ed.), Georges-Louis Leclerc (au.), Histoire naturelle de Buffon, classée par ordres, genres et espèces, d'après le systême de Linné, avec les caractères génériques et la nomenclacture Linnéenne, par René- Richard Castel, auteur du poëme des Plantes. Paris: L’Imprimerie de Crapelet, Chez Deterville, rue du Battoir, n. 16, An VII [1799].
Interior Condition: Good. Paris, printed by the Imprimerie Crapelet, 1799 (uses French Republican calendar), 32mo, pp. iii, 1-317, i; π3, 1 (6+1), 2-3 (6), 4 (6 +1), 5 -7 (6), 8 (6+2), 9 (6), 10 (6+2), 11 (6+1), 12-13 (6), 14-15 (6+1), 16 (6), 17 -18 (6+1), 19 (6+1), 20 (6+1), 21- 22 (6), 23 (6+1), 24 (6), 25- 26 (6+1), 27 (3), one worm hole extending from prelims to p. 61, some minor foxing throughout, but many clean pages; 15 full-page, double paned illustrations.; no reader marks. Binding Condition: Good. Full leather bound, gold tooling, with decorative gold stamping on spine, title on red leather, series number on green leather, age evident with some separation between front cover board and spine, still very strongly attached, corners have wear, and leather has received some damage on back cover.
This book is one volume in a set of 36. While ideally it will complete a collection of the Crapelet-Deterville Buffon set, it also stands as a wonderful single volume, with 15-double paned illustrations of many four-legged animals.
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count of Buffon, (1707-1788) produced his encyclopedic work of 36 volumes over the course of 50 years, and is known as one of the chief naturalists of the 18th century.
Among other paradigm-changing contributions to understanding the natural world, Buffon's works challenged calculation that the world was 6,000 years old and his claim of the superiority of European flora and fauna to that of North America affronted Thomas Jefferson so much that he sent examples to Europe in order to disprove Buffon's assertion.
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