Histoire Naturelle des Quadrupedes Ovipares et des Serpens (Volumes I and II); Histoire Naturelle des Serpens (Volumes III and IV)

Paris: Hotel de Thou, 1788-1790. First edition.

FIRST EDITION 4 VOLUME MONOGRAPH ON REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS BY LA CEPEDE, EXPANDING THE WORK OF BUFFON, ILLUSTRATED WITH FINE COPPER PLATE ENGRAVINGS.

Four hardcover volumes, 6 1/2 inches tall, full leather binding, spines with raised bands, gilt compartments, all edges red stained, marbled endpapers, Vol. I, 60, 359, 12 plates; Vol. II, iv, 461, [ii], 15 plates; Vol. III, 432, 11 plates; Vol. IV, 408, 11 plates, "Eloge du Comte de Buffon". Illustrated with 49 copper plate engravings. Light wear to covers, surface insect damage to covers of Vol. II, browning to edges of first and last pages, abrasion across front endpapers of Vol. I, bindings tight, pages crisp and unmarked, very good minus. French language.

BERNARD-GERMAIN DE LA CEPEDE (1756 - 1825) was a French naturalist whose early perusal of Buffon's Natural History (Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière) awakened his interest in natural history. He wrote two treatises, Essai sur l'électricité (1781) and Physique générale et particulaire (1782-1784), which gained him the friendship of Buffon, who in 1785 employed him in the Jardin du Roi, and proposed that he continue his Histoire naturelle. La Cepede responded with the publication of this continuation, published under the titles Histoire des quadrupèdes, ovipares et des serpens (offered here). After the French Revolution Lacépède became a member of the Legislative Assembly, but during the Reign of Terror he left Paris, his life having become endangered by his disapproval of the massacres. When the Jardin du Roi was reorganized as the Jardin des Plantes, Lacépède was appointed to the chair allocated to the study of reptiles and fishes. In 1798 he published the first volume of Histoire naturelle des poissons, the fifth volume appearing in 1803, and in 1804 appeared his Histoire des cétacés. In 1799 he became a senator, and in 1803 grand chancellor of the Legion of Honor. During the latter part of his life he wrote Histoire générale physique et civile de l'Europe, published posthumously in 18 volumes, 1826. He was elected a member of the Institute of France in 1796, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1806 and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1812.