A Monograph of the British Spongiadae

London: Robert Hardwicke, 1864, 1866, 1874, 1882. First edition.

LANDMARK MONOGRAPH ON SPONGES WITH 146 SUPERB PLATES BY MASTER LITHOGRAPHERS.

Four hardcover volumes 9 inches tall, blue cloth binding, Ray Society gilt emblem to covers, top edge gilt, rebacked with original spines preserved. Vol. I, i-xx, 290 pp, 37 plates; Vol. II, I-XX, 388 PP; Vol. III, i-xvii, 367 pp, 92 plates; Vol. IV, i-xvii, 250 pp, 17 plates. Spines faded and spine ends worn, light browning to pages. In Vols. I and III, top corner of half title page have been cut out (presumably to remove previous owner name); rear endpaper missing in each volume. Texts and plates bright and unmarked, bindings secure. A good+ complete set of this scarce work with 146 fine lithographic plates that was published over an 18 year period.

JAMES SCOTT BOWERBANK (1797 – 1877) was a British naturalist and paleontologist. The organic remains of the London Clay attracted particular attention, and about the year 1836 he and six other workers founded The London Clay Club – the members comprising Dr Bowerbank, Frederick E. Edwards, Searles Valentine Wood, John Morris, Alfred White, N. T. Wetherell, and James De Carle Sowerby. In 1840, Bowerbank was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1847 he suggested the establishment of a society for the publication of undescribed British Fossils and thus originated the Palaeontographical Society. From 1844 until 1864 he did much to encourage a love of natural science by being at home every Monday evening at his residence in Highbury Grove, where the treasures of his museum, his 4 microscopes, and his personal assistants were at the service of every earnest student. He became specially interested in the study of sponges, and he was author of A Monograph of the British Spongiadae (offered here). Bowerbank died before he could finish Volume IV, so this was edited with additions by

ALFRED MERLE NORMAN (1831 – 1918), an English clergyman and naturalist. He received his M.A. from the University of Oxford in 1859. He then went to Wells Theological College and was ordained as a deacon in 1856. He became a Canon of Durham Cathedral in 1885. During his 29 years at Bournmoor he was involved with church matters and also with many scientific societies including the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the Conchological and Malacological Societies and the Museums Association. Even in his later years, he did research and published papers. Norman is known for publishing major work on Protozoa, Porifera, Coelenterata, mollusca, crustacea, echinodermata, and other invertebrates. Norman published in excess of 200 papers. The superb lithographs in Volumes I and III were created by

WILLIAM LENS ALDOUS (1792 – 1878), a British illustrator who reproduced findings of the early workers in microscopy, and an early member of the Royal Microscopical Society. He worked with J. B. Reade, a pioneer of experimental photography. His colored lithograph, 'Head of a Flea', was presented to the Entomological Society of London on 7 May 1838, who adopted it for a poster. Reade's letters to his contemporaries describe how Aldous began his illustrations of microscopy with this illustration, after a drawing, "highly magnified figure of the head of a flea" (1837), derived from his experiments in microscopic photography. Plates for Volume IV were made by JOSEPH DINKEL (1806 – 1891), an Austrian artist known for his illustrations of scientific specimens including for works by Louis Agassiz. Agassiz met Dinkel in 1828 and they collaborated for more than 20 years, prior to Agassiz' move from Switzerland to Boston in 1846.

CURRENT EVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS: JL Steenwyk & N King. Integrative phylogenomics positions sponges at the root of the animal tree. Science 13 Nov 2025, pp 751-6.