Lot 226: GRAY, John Edward (1800-1875). Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall . Knowsley: printed for private distribution, 1846. [With:] Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall. Hoofed Quadrupeds . Knowsley: printed

GRAY, John Edward (1800-1875). Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall. Knowsley: printed for private distribution, 1846. [With:] Gleanings from the Menagerie and Aviary at Knowsley Hall. Hoofed Quadrupeds. Knowsley: printed for private distribution, 1850.

2 works in one volume, 2° (548 x 374mm). First work: 17 hand-coloured lithographic plates after Edward Lear, 16 by J. W. Moore, one by D. Mitchell, printed by Hullmandel and Walton, coloured by Bayfield. (Small repaired tears to plates 7 and 9.) Second work: 62 lithographic plates by and after B. Waterhouse Hawkins, printed by McLean & Co. or Hullmandel & Walton, of which 16 printed in colours or tinted. (Small tears along the external margin of first plate.) Contemporary red half calf, gilt title on spine. Provenance: Sir Robert Heron (gift from the Earl of Derby) -- Herbert Whitley Trust (stamp).

PRESENTATION COPY OF THIS RARE WORK, a record of a selection of the birds and mammals in the Menagerie at Knowsley with two autograph inscriptions on the title-pages: "From Lord Derby" on the first work and "For Robert Heron Bart from the Earl of Derby" on the second. Edward Smith Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, commissioned Edward Lear and Waterhouse Hawkins to picture examples from what was at the time the largest private zoo in England, covering 170 acres and containing 1,272 birds and 345 mammals at the time of Lord Derby's death in 1851. Lord Derby developed a captive breeding programme and the sale catalogue of the menagerie and aviary notes that 84 of 412 species had been bred at Knowsley. Privately-printed, it is probable that no more than 100 copies of each volume were produced. Anker 189; Fine Birds Books p. 103; Nissen IVB 392 and ZBI 1691; Wood p. 368; Zimmer p. 273.

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