BUFFON Georges-Louis Leclerc comte de Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roy.

Fléty, 78; Ramsden, French Bookbinders, 1789-1848, p.91.

First edition of this seminal work.

After an eventful and adventurous youth, Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, settled in Paris in 1732. Ambitious and determined, he quickly made a name for himself with his work on science and mathematics. Thanks to the support of powerful patrons such as Maurepas and with the backing of the King, he joined the Académie des Sciences in 1734. The following year, he translated a work by Stephen Hales on the statics of plants and conducted experiments at Petit Fontenet on the hardness of wood. Against all odds, he ousted his eternal rival, Duhamel du Monceau, and in July 1739 succeeded Dufay as Intendant of the Jardin du Roi, otherwise known as the Jardin royal des plantes.

Under Buffon’s impetus, this “apothecary’s garden” was considerably enlarged, to the point of doubling its surface area, and was equipped with new facilities. Trees and plants brought back from all over the world were acclimatized here, the collections were enriched by donations and expedition returns, and an amphitheater and laboratory were set up for teaching purposes. The natural history cabinet or Cabinet du Roi, the embryo of the future museum, was developed.

Numerous scientists, including Daubenton, Portal, Le Monnier, Macquer and Jussieu, came to give lectures. During Buffon’s reign, the Jardin des Plantes became a leading scientific establishment.

As soon as he arrived at the Jardin du Roi, Buffon began to undertake what was to become his life’s achievement: the writing of a work summarizing and popularizing natural history. Originally, he had simply been asked to produce a detailed description of the collections in the King’s Cabinet. But Buffon went beyond the initial project and set out to bring together all the kingdoms of nature in a single work, which was a truly encyclopaedical undertaking. Imbued with a philosophical spirit, he set himself the goal of providing the reader with the scientific laws that govern nature, summing up his approach as follows: “the only true science is the knowledge of facts”.

Sensitive to honours, Buffon became a member of the Académie française in 1753 and had his land at Buffon made an earldom in 1772. His aristocratic manners earned him constant derision from his enemies, but he nevertheless enjoyed great prestige at court until his death. Buffon spent much of his time, sometimes up to eight months a year, at his hotel in Montbard, his home town. It was largely on his Burgundian estate that he worked on writing his Histoire naturelle.

The book was an immediate and huge success. The first edition sold out in six weeks, and its success continued unabated until the end of the 19th century. Along with the Encyclopédie, Histoire Naturelle was one of the great publishing successes of the eighteenth century.

As with the Encyclopaedia, the Histoire naturelle is a collaborative undertaking, which outlived both its instigator and its principal author. Daubenton and Lacepède (first under the name Comte de, then Citoyen), the two most important scientists among the many contributors, completed the work after Buffon’s death in 1788, and published the last volume in 1804.

“Buffon’s work is of exceptional importance because of its diversity richness, originality, and influence, Buffon was among the first to create an autonomous science, free of any theological influence. He emphasized the importance of natural history and the great length of geological time. He envisioned the nature of science and understood the roles of paleontology zoological geography, and animal psychology. He realized both the necessity of transformism and its difficulties. Although his cosmogony was inadequate and his theory of animal reproduction was weak, and although he did not understand the problem of classification, he did establish the intellectual framework within which most naturalists up to Darwin worked.” (DSB)

Illustrated with 1,261 plates and 8 maps, over 1,000 of which are the work of Jacques de Sève, father and son. They range from exact anatomical drawings (skeletons, dissections, etc.) to representations of animals in their natural habitat.

A lovely copy bound by Gaudreau, 110 rue Saint-Jacques.

The bookbinder’s label on the upper endpaper of the first volume provides interesting information about the copy.
The Gaudreau were a famous family of bookbinders, the most famous being François, who was Queen Marie-Antoinette’s bookbinder from 1772.

Information gathered from Fléty, the Almanachs du commerce, Ramsden (French Bookbinders, 1789-1848), and sales from the Michel Wittock collection (24 October 2013 & 12 November 2015) establish the presence of a bookbinder by the name of Gaudreau, based at 110 rue Saint-Jacques between 1811 and 1839. Gaudreau produced several bindings bearing the arms of Napoleon I (Norvins, Histoire de Napoléon, 1834, Wittock sale, part 5 & Salluste, Œuvre, 1809- Wittock sale, part 6).

Although there are no documents to guarantee a connection between François Gaudreau and the bookbinder on rue Saint-Jacques, their binding materials, and in particular the one used for our copy, are similar. It is therefore likely that our bookbinder was the son of François Gaudreau, the Queen’s bookbinder, and that he inherited his father’s binding equipment.

The coats of arms on the volumes (royal rather than imperial arms) give us an idea of the date of the binding. Indeed, we know of a copy of the Breviarum Parisiense, dated 1778, bound by Gaudreau for Louis XVIII (Sale Binoche et Giquello, 8 December 2017), and the tool used on our copy are quite similar.

Gaudreau moved to rue Saint-Jacques no later than 1811, during the Empire. However, as the binding material used bears the royal coat of arms, it is quite possible that these bindings were produced during the Restoration, around 1814-1815.

Although undoubtedly from the 19th century, this binding is entirely in the taste of the 18th century, and the use of magnificent animal tools on the spines of the bindings is perfectly in keeping with Buffon’s work.

A magnificent and absolutely complete copy. Volumes 1 and 3 of the General History  have a mention of “Second Edition” on the title page.
 

COLLATION

Histoire naturelle générale et particulière, 15 volumes; Supplément, 7 volumes; Oiseaux, 9 volumes; Minéraux, 5 + 1 volumes; Ovipares et serpents, 2 volumes; Poissons, 5 volumes; Cétacées, 1 volume.

Illustrated with a portrait-frontispiece, 38 vignettes, 1261 plates, 11 fold-out maps and 3 large fold- out tables.

Natural history, 15 volumes
Vol.1 : 3 unn.l., 612 pp., 2 allegorical figures, 2 maps.
–    Mention of Second Edition, 1750
–    Worm hole without damage to text at end of volume (pp 577 to 588) Vol.2 : 2 unn.l., 603 pp., 8 plates.
Vol.3 : 2 unn.l.., 530 pp.,17 plates – plate 14 bound after 16. – Mention of second edition
Vol.4: XVI pp. 544 pp. 23 plates.
–    Plates 11, 12, and 13 present in duplicate.
Vol.5 : 2 unn.l., 311 pp. 52 plates, 1 folding table. Vol.6 : 1 nn.l., VI pp., 344 pp, 57 plates
–    Plates 1 to 7 are bound in after plate 19.
Vol.7: 3 nn.l., 378 pp, 1 nn.l. (notice to the binder), 48 plates.
–    Pages 361 to 378 and the notice to the bookbinder are shorter, and the edges are red and not speckled.
Vol.8 : 3 nn.l., 402 pp. 1 nn.l. (notice to the bookbinder), 54 plates. – The whole volume is shorter in margin than the others
Vol. 9: 3 unn.l., 375 pp., 41 plates.
–    Plate 32 bound after 33.
–    Plate 39 bound after plate 41.
Vol. 10: 3 unn.l.., 368 pp. 1 f.b.c., 57 plates. – Book Vv bound between books Xx and Yy. Vol. 11: 2 unn.l.., 450 pp, 1 f.b.c., 43 plates.
Vol. 12: 3 ff.n.p., XVI pp., 451 pp. 58 plates (57 plates + plate 46 bis.)
–    Plates 48 to 55 bound between plates 36 and 37. – Plates 56 and 57 bound at the end after plate 47
–    (1 to 36 then 48 to 55, then 37 to 47, then 56 and 57.)
Vol. 13: 3 f.b.c., XX pp., 441 pp. 1 f.b.c. (notice to the binder), 59 plates.
Vol. 14: 3 f.n.p., 441 pp., 41 plates.
Vol. 15: 3 f.n.p., 207 pp. CCCXXIV pp. 1 nn.l. 18 plates.

Birds, 9 volumes
Vol.1 : 4 unn.l., XXIV pp., 496 pp. 29 plates. Vol.2 : 5 ff.n.p., 560 pp., 27 plates.
Vol.3 : 2 ff.n.c., IV pp, 6 ff.n.c., 502 pp, XCVI pp, 1 nn.l. (errata), 31 plates. Vol.4: XVI pp, 590 pp, XXVIII pp, 27 plates.
Vol.5: XV pp. 546 pp, XXVIII, 22 plates.
Vol.6: 1 f.n.c., XVI pp. 702 pp, 1 nn.l., 25 plates.
Vol.7 : 2 ff.n.c., XVI pp. 554 pp, XCVI pp. 31 plates.
Vol.8 : 2 ff.n.c., VIII pp. 498 pp. XLII pp. 39 plates. Vol.9: VIII pp, 438 pp, XXX pp, 284 pp and 31 plates.

Minerals, 6 volumes
Vol.1 : 2 unn.l.., 557 pp, XL pp. Vol. plates : 8 folding maps
Vol. 2 : 2 unn.l.., 602 pp, XXVI pp.
Vol. 3 : 3 unn.l.., 636 pp, XIX pp. Vol.4 : 3 unn.l.., 448 pp, XXXIXpp.
Vol.5 : VIII pp, 208 pp, 368 pp (tables).

Supplements, 7 volumes
Vol.1 : 3 unn.l., 537 pp. (incorrectly numbered 542), XXVIII pp. 1.f.b.c., 1 portrait, 16 plates.
–    Jump in page numbering from 520 to 525, the text follows, same numbering in the BNF digitised copy.
Vol. 2: 3 ff.n.c., 564 pp, XXXIV pp, 1 f.n.c.
Vol. 3 : 5 ff.n.p., 330 pp., XXI pp. 67 plates (65 plates + plates 18bis and 21bis) Vol.4 : 4 ff.n.p., 582 pp., XX pp. 6 plates.
Vol.5: 1 f.n.p., VIII pp. 615 pp. XXVIII pp. 2 folding maps and 6 plates. Vol.6: VIII pp. 405 pp. XXV pp. 49 plates.
–    Plates 39 and 40 bound after plate 41.
Vol. 7 : 1-8 pp, IX-XX pp, 364 pp and 82 plates.

Quadrupeds, oviparous and snakes, 2 volumes
Vol.1: 17 pp., 651 pp, 1 folding table and 41 plates.
Vol. 2: 8 pp, 19 pp, 1 unn.p. (errata), 527 pp, 22 plates.

Fish, 5 volumes, all plates before the letter.
Vol.1: 2 unn.l., CXLVII pp. 8 pp. 532 pp, 1 folding table and 25 plates.
–    Book 24 browned.
Vol. 2: 2 unn.l.., LXIV pp. 632 pp. 20 plates.
Vol. 3 : 2 unn.l.., 16 pp., LXVI pp. 558 pp. 34 plates.
Vol.4 : XLIV pp. 728 pp. 16 plates.
Vol.5 : LXVIII, 392 pp. 1.f.n.c., 393-803 pp. 21 plates.

Cetacea, 1 volume
Vol.1 : XLIV pp. 329 pp. 16 plates. The plates are before the letter.