Stuttgart and Tübingen, J. C. Cotta, 1845-1862. Six volumes (text and atlas) in seven. 8vo (21.0 x 13.1 cm). Title pages and half-titles; 3546 pp. (1 [1845]: xvi, 394; 2 [1847]: 544; 3 [1850] 645; 4 [1858] 650; 5.1-5.2 [1862] 1-592; 593-1297). Atlas in two parts (descriptive text; maps) oblong 4to (28.1 x 34.1 cm); title pages, [ii], 136 pp. (for a total of 3674 pp.); 42 lithographed and engraved maps of which 39 originally hand-coloured. Text volumes: Uniform brown half morocco over black, grained boards. Spines with four raised bands; compartments with blind-tooled ornamental panels and gilt bands, title and number. Tan endpapers. Marbled edges. Fifth, later published part in similar half calf over black, grained boards; spine with ornamental gilt pattern, title and number. Atlas volumes: uniform brown half calf over black, grained boards. Spines with gilt ornamental bands, vignettes and title.

One of the great 19th-century German classics. A rare complete set including the 5th text volume that was published much later and is often lacking. This set also has the original atlas by the German geographer and travel-writer Traugott Bromme (1802-1866), not the later, abridged Volksausgabe. Written by the German explorer and polymath (geographer, geologist, botanist, zoologist, philosopher) Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). Alexander von Humboldt "resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multivolume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity, which introduced concepts of ecology leading to ideas of environmentalism" (Wikipedia). According to Keller, Humboldt planned this work for 50 years and it is what he regarded as his magnum opus. The outlines of Humboldt's view of the universe, or in Humboldt's words "the picture of nature" are presented in the first volume and explored in detail in the third and fourth. The third volume focuses on astronomy and the fourth on geology. Later, a fifth volume was added, which is rare and seldom included, but present in this set. Plate 6 is in revised edition, approved by von Humboldt, and replacing an earlier version which contained a serious mistake. Boards slightly worn at edges; some light, scattered foxing, but nearly all pages clean - a very uncommon, superior condition; atlas volumes with just a few, small, marginal spots, and in all a very good - if not excellent - complete copy. PMM 320; Sabin, 33726; Sparrow, Milestones of Science, 106; Ward and Carozzi 1141.