Lot 578: MICHAUX, François André (1770-1855) and Thomas NUTTALL (1786-1859). The North American Sylva;

MICHAUX, François André (1770-1855) and Thomas NUTTALL (1786-1859). The North American Sylva; or, A Description of the Forest Trees of the United States, Canada and Nova Scotia. Philadelphia: D. Rice & A.N. Hart, 1857.

5 volumes, large 8 o (267 x 174 mm). 277 hand-colored engraved or lithographed plates. Contemporary brown blind-tooled morocco, spines gilt, edges gilt (some rubbing to joints, vol. 1 front hinge cracked).
"Few American color plate books had such lasting popularity as this classic work on American trees, or as tangled a publication history... In 1856 a cire destroyed the premises of the publisher of the joint edition. The Michaux plates were saved, but the Nuttall stones were evidently lost, and the later joint editions used new stones" (Reese, Stamped with a National Character: Nineteenth Century American Color Plate Books 21). (5)