Paris, J. B. Baillière et fils, 1856-1865. In four volumes. Large 4to. (30.6 x 24.5 cm). Text (in three parts): half-titles and titles, 2,550 pp. [912; 968; 668, (ii)]. Atlas: two title pages, 195 [88; 107] pp. of explanatory text; 196 large, finely engraved plates [I-LXXXVII, XIbis, XVIbis; 1-107]. Uniform green buckram with double gilt bands and title on the spines. Original printed wrappers (one to eacht text volume; four to the atlas) bound in.

One of the largest and finest works of the French malacologist and palaeontologist Gérard Paul Deshayes (1796-1875). As is usual with works dealing with fossils, there was just one, uncoloured, edition. It was sold, in 1866, for 250 French francs: by far the most expensive of all uncoloured works on Mollusca. Only the hand-coloured edition of Férrussac and Deshayes' Histoire naturelle général et particulière des mollusques was more expensive, at 490 francs, discounted from a previous and astonishing 1,250 francs. The fine plates with large, detailed figures, are by Delahaye, Formant, Lackenbauer, and Levasseur. Most specimens have a detailed enlarged illustration, a life-size outline figure, and, often, a further enlarged sculpture detail; in the bivalves usually the taxonomically important hinges. Like most of his works, this one is important because of the many new species and detailed illustrations. The Description is one of the few works completed by the author, and includes simple plate numbering. Deshayes started many projects, but several remained unfinished and the plate numbering, for instance in his work on the molluscs of Algeria, was usually confusing. In this work, however, there are only two 'bis' plates. The last page of Volume 3 contains a list of publication dates of the 50 livraisons (issues), recording the first two as from 2 November 1856, and the last two (49 and 50) from 15 December 1865. Only the last title page bears the year 1866. The third volume has a 2 pp. publisher's list of natural history books published by Baillière, and on the half-title verso is a list of works by Deshayes. This work is truly rare, and possibly even Deshayes' rarest work. There are no auction records of complete copies after 1965, when Wheldon and Wesley purchased one at Sotheby's in London. This set with the stamp of the American malacologist Richard Irwin Johnson (1925-2020) in the top margin of several wrappers. Uncut, with the widest possible margins. The two atlas volumes (published in four, with text and plates separate) are bound in one, with all four wrappers, thus for a total of seven wrappers in the set (i.e., complete). A few text leaves with some foxing, but generally very clean, and all plates clean. Caprotti II, p. 21 [185]; Nissen ZBI, 1089.