London, Benjamin White, 1776. 8vo (21.9 x 13.5 cm). viii, iii-vi, 319 pp.; seven large, folded, finely hand-coloured engraved plates, two large, folded charts. 20th-century red buckram with gilt title on the spine. Speckled edges.

A rare, originally hand-coloured copy of the first work on shells by the British malacologist Emanuel Mendes da Costa, (1717-1791). The colouring is realistic, accurate. Two years later his Historia Naturalis Testacearum Britanniae was published, but this earlier work deals with worldwide shells. Provenance: the name Clench (the American malacologist William James 'Bill' Clench [1897-1984]) written in the top margin of the title page verso, and the stamp of the American malacologist Richard Irwin Johnson (1925-2020) in the top margin of the title page. Some offsetting from the plates to the opposite text leaves, but otherwise a very good, clean copy. Nissen ZBI, 2784.