A History of British Sponges and Lithophytes

Edinburgh: W.H. Lizars, 1842. First edition.

HANDSOMELY BOUND SMALL ATLAS OF BRITISH SPONGES WITH PLATES BY AUDUBON'S LITHOGRAPHER.

21.5 x 13 cm hardcover, 3/4 leather binding, spine with raised bands and gilt title, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, i-vii, 264 pp, 25 tinted and partly colored lithographic plates by W H Lizars. Very good in custom archival mylar cover.

GEORGE JOHNSTON (1797–1855), earned his MD from the University of Edinburgh, and was apprenticed to Dr. Abercrombie. In 1817 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He was thrice mayor of Berwick, and became LL.D. of Aberdeen. He was one of the founders of the Ray Society and of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, and was from 1837 one of the editors of the 'Magazine of Zoology and Botany,' afterwards the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History.' To that periodical, to the 'Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,' to Loudon's 'Magazine of Natural History,' to the 'Transactions of the Natural History Society of Newcastle,' and to the 'Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club,' he contributed an aggregate of ninety papers. This book contains a "History of Discoveries of the Nature of Sponges" describing the opinions of Aristotle, Pliny, Linnaeus, Spallanzani, Lamarck, and many others"

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.

WILLIAM HOME LIZARS (1788 – 1859) was a Scottish painter, engraver and publisher. Lizars was first apprenticed to his father, from whom he learnt engraving. In 1812, on the death of his father, Lizars had to carry on the business of engraving and copperplate printing in order to support his mother and family. Lizars encountered J. J. Audubon in Edinburgh in October 1826, and helped Audubon meet Edinburgh luminaries likely to be useful to him: Robert Jameson, David Brewster and James Wilson in particular. Lizars had agreed to publish Audubon's The Birds of America. After a promising start, the business did not go well, and Audubon moved the production to London. The work was completed by the Havell family. He died in Edinburgh on 30 March 1859, leaving a widow and family.