Sydney, William Maddock, 1868. 8vo (23.3 x 15.8 cm). v, 111 pp.; 20 originally hand-coloured lithographed plates, heightened with gum arabic, tissue-guarded, and with explanatory text leaves. Later burgundy buckram with gilt title on the spine.

The most important malacological work by the Australian medical doctor James Charles Cox (1834-1912). The title promises eighteen plates, but actually there are twenty, showing the incredible variability of the highly endemic Australian terrestrial malacofauna. Several species are new, and even more are figured here for the first time. Original coloured copies are rare. This is one of a very small group of natural history books printed in Australia with hand-coloured plates. Nissen errs in listing the author as James Edward Cox (1833-1912). Provenance: in the top margin a stamp of the Dutch ornithologist Willem Warnsinck (1856-1923), and of the American malacologist Richard Irwin Johnson (1925-2020). Slight age-toning, very small crease in lower outer corner of the first and third plate and a few preceding text leaves, otherwise a very good, clean copy. Very rare, especially in this good state. Ferguson, 8792 (not recording the hand-coloured edition); Nissen ZBI, 984.