London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1849-1858. Nine parts in nine. 4to (31.0 x 25.0 cm). 90 lithographed plates with explanatory text leaves. Original uniform printed wrappers.

A rare, uninterrupted series, from the start. Mostly dealing with sea urchins, trilobites and fish. Well-illustrated. The work was published in issues, with new pagination to each plate. The number of pages for each plate varies between two and 12. The preface is by Henry de la Beche, the descriptions are nearly all by John William Salter (1820-1869), and include new species. The British naturalist and palaeontologist Edward Forbes (b. 1815) died in 1854. Cat. BM(NH) lists only the first five parts under his name. In total, 13 parts were issued up to 1866 - this is about two-thirds of the total published. Uncut. With very wide margins. We have seen copies in 8vo format, which are no match. Soiling to wrappers. Rear wrapper of part VIII, and front wrapper of part IX lacking, several wrappers detached, but otherwise a very good, unmarked set. Cat. BM(NH) Supplement, p. 334. Not in Ward and Carozzi.