Coloured Figures of the Eggs of British Birds with descriptive notes edited after the author’s death by R. Bowdler Sharpe 1st Edition 1896 with the bookplate of Hugh Cecil Earl of Lonsdale

Henry Seebohm’s classic of British Oology, with 60 (1-58, 58a, 59) full page chromolithographic plates with illustrations of hundreds of British bird eggs, beautifully realised; accompanied by descriptive notes on the nests and eggs, and with systematic index; b&w frontispiece plate of Seebohm; edited by R. Bowdler Sharpe, published shortly after Seebohm’s death in 1895; Bowdler Sharpe also provides a memoir prior to the text; maroon cloth boards with gilt titling to front and spine, maroon endpapers; this copy with the bookplate of Hugh Cecil (Lowther) Earl of Lonsdale – Lonsdale was an English Peer, explorer, and founder of the Automobile Association; a fanatical sportsman he donated the original Lonsdale Belts in 1909 for championship boxing (Lonsdale later becoming a brand of boxing equipment), and was director of Arsenal FC in 1936; from 1929 he was joint editor of the Lonsdale Library of Sports, Games and Pastimes; he lived a generally dissolute lifestyle and was never far from scandal; small bookshop label, vertical crease to frontispiece plate near gutter, further creases to rear endpaper; light-med foxing to prelims and title page, text block toned, very occasional foxing in text, o.w. Very Good throughout; mild shelfwear to boards, two vertical strips of front board sun-faded.