Pisa, Bibliotheca Malacologica, 1869. 8vo (23.0 x 15.1 cm). Half-title "Biblioteca malacologia"; title page, xi, 387 pp.; coloured folded map, five tinted lithographed plates. Early to mid-20th-century linen with gilt title on the spine. Mottled edges.

The very rare first work entirely devoted to the molluscs of the Red Sea, written by the Italian malacologist Arturo Issel (1842-1922). It includes many new species, the majority still valid today. Some shells are well-preserved Quaternary fossils. The detailed, coloured map show where such fossil outcrops occur. On the half-title and title page a stamp and blind-stamp of the Conchological Society and the small stamp of the American malacologist Richard Irwin Johnson (1925-2020); the discrete blind-stamp of the Conchological Society in the plate margins, otherwise a very good, clean copy. Well-bound and with the often lacking half-title. Neither in Caprotti nor in Nissen.