Rare Edition - John Hunter's Introduction to Observations and Reflections on Geology.
Full title - Observations and Reflections on Geology. Intended to serve as an Introduction to the Catalogue of his Collection of Extraneous Fossils.
Pub. LONDON: Printed by Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1859. Title, [2] leaves, pp. i-lviii.
Russell notes: 'This is printed from two unpublished manuscripts left by Hunter and was done for the Royal College of Surgeons. The first issue of this work was recalled and destroyed following a complaint by Richard Owen [Hunterian Professor at the College] about a paragraph in the preface. A second issue was printed with the preface altered. No copy of the first is known and a second issue is held in a library. Outside of these probably only 4 copies exist of which this is one.
Letter to KFR (Russell) from F. Wood Jones, Royal College of Surgeons 19 June 1953 "The Hunter Geology is, I believe, a very rare item: and I fancy there must be very few outside the library list I gave. Here there are at the most, only 4 copies - but I did not say so in the paper. Where the others went I do not know. Nor can I find out how many were printed and bound (very few I imagine) or how many were printed in all, but not bound. These last have either been sold as waste or, less probably, destroyed in 1941. We have failed to trace any of them. I have a copy and I gave, I think 3 away but I doubt if any others are in private possession. Owen's own copy has not come to light (first issue) and his checked copy seems to be the only one extant"
Original brown buckram binding is faded at the extremities, spine very faded. Text is very clean and straight. Book label, K.F. Russell. (290x224mm)


Estimate $450-1,000