CATESBY, Mark (1683-1749).
Hortus Europae Americanus: or, a Collection of 85 Curious Trees and Shrubs, The Produce of North America; adapted to The Climates and Soils of Great-Britain, Ireland, and most Parts of Europe, &c. Together with Their Blossoms, Fruits and Seeds; Observations on their Culture, Growth, Constitution and Virtues. With Directions how to collect, pack up and secure them in their Passage. Adorned with 63 Figures on 17 Copper-Plates, large Imperial Quarto. By Mark Catesby, F.R.S.
London: for J. Millan, 1767.
First edition, second issue.

THE REESE COPY WITH PLATES ON AZURE PAPER

"Imperial Quarto" in 2s (14" x 11 5/16", 369mm x 288mm): ?1 2?2 A-L2 ?1 [$1 signed]. 26 leaves, pp. [4] (title, blank, dedication, blank), i ii-vi (3pp. preface, blank, 2pp. contents), 1-41, blank. With 17 hand-colored engraved plates (62 figures, pace the title) on azure paper.

Bound in modern half diced calf over marbled paper boards. On the spine, six raised bands. Author and title gilt to red calf in the second panel.

Offsetting at the plates, with scattered soiling and mild foxing. Cancel title-page and plates with fore-edge deckles. Ink manuscript captions in an old hand to 11 of the plates, often several. Book-label of William S. Reese (from his sale) to the front paste-down. Ownership signature of "A. Knauff" (Knaust?) to the title-page.

Mark Catesby (1683-1749) was a pioneering naturalist who drew no boundaries around his interests. An inheritance from his father allowed him to cross the Atlantic to Virginia in 1712, and to make return journeys that brought him along the Atlantic coastline and to the Bahamas. He sent specimens back to Sir Hans Sloane, and meanwhile described and drew what he had seen in the unspoiled and unsettled southern part of the American Atlantic. Returning for good to England in 1726, and with the encouragement of Sloane and other members of the Royal Society to which Catesby was belatedly elected in 1733 & spent the next two decades bringing the Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1731-1747) to completion.

The Hortus Europae Americanus, first published in 1763 as Hortus Britanno-Americanus (widening the market), is a posthumous work that brought some of Catesby's finer observations to the public; by focusing on trees and shrubs he was able to explain not only their characteristics but specific methods of transportation and propagation. The illustrations, many signed with Catesby's distinctive monogram, are altogether finer and more luxurious; the price (as noted on the title-page) was the exorbitant 1/11/6 pounds. The book is quite rare, having come to auction only 13 times (6 in this century).

The identity of A. Knauff, perhaps Knaust or Knauft, is unclear; he may also be the annotator of the plates, mostly with Linnaean binomials. Could this have been Andreas Knauff (1765-1835), the German entrepreneur who bought up copper and iron works in Russia? Unnoted by Christie's was the plates' printing on azure paper (sometimes called Holland blue), long a mark of luxurious publication. This also lends a richness to the greens of the foliage.

Christie's sale of William S. Reese (part two, Christie's New York 26 May 2022, lot 286 - $126,000). Bill (1955-2018) was one of the great Americana booksellers; his firm continues to trade in New Haven. The three-part sale of his personal library contained many of the great titles of Americana as well as of Natural History.

ESTC T113821; Nissen, BBI 338; Oak Spring Sylva 15; Sabin 11507.