London, George Brettingham Sowerby, [1821-1834]. 8vo format (21.3 x 13.4 cm). [iv] pp.; 260 (of 265) lithographed and finely hand-coloured (all but three) plates. Contemporary uniform polished half calf over grained cloth boards. Spines with gilt ornamental bands and title. Brown endpapers. Edges finely sprinkled red. Preserved in custom-made pictorial shell-themed double slipcase.

The first - and rarest - book of the first of three George Brettingham Sowerby's. With illustrations by the father of the author, James Sowerby (1757-1822). In this copy, the 42 published parts are bound in chronologically. Each part contained at least three genera, in no systematical order. There are 116 genera in Volume I; and 122 in Volume II. Four of the parts, on Cymba and Melo, on Voluta, on Placunamonia and on Stylifer were written by the British malacologist William John Broderip (1789-1859) (see Petit, 2006; 2009). Inserted after the Limax Part is a printed correction stating that the authorship of Broderip of the Placunanomia Part was inadvertently omitted. The second plate to Venus is plain, as always (Petit, 2006: 82). The first 41 parts are complete. Of the 42nd and last published, two plates, viz., Neritopsis ('Nerilopsis' in the plate caption is an error), and one plate of Purpura are plain, and five plates, Trichotropis, Purpura (one of two), Lottia, Cerithium (one of two), and Glauconome are not present. The present Cerithium plate, however, is hand-coloured. All text is present. Nissen records 267 plates, but that is incorrect - it should be 265, as shown by Petit (2006, 2009). Nearly all copies have even fewer plates. Nissen based his count on a copy with numbered plates, presumably the much later Quaritch edition, which, however, lists plates up to 279, but skips 14 numbers, while an errata sheet lists only 12 unused plate numbers (Petit, 2006, p. 81). Quaritch provided a title page; the first edition, having never been concluded, has none. In this copy, the original wrappers of Parts III and XXII act as titles. In the index to Part II, the last seven genera are added in pencil. Apparently, this copy was first bound and indexed as complete after 41 issues. However, the work was never officially concluded, and the incompleteness of Part 42 supports the view that in the end publication faltered. Petit (2006: 80) quoted from the wrapper of Part 42: "'To be completed in two or three more numbers'; and: 'Eight plates of the following genera are contained in No. 42' ... but there are six genera listed and only six plates". Alphabetical indexes, neatly written in an old hand, bound in the rear of each volume. The Argonauta and Nautilus plates bound after Hamites; the plates of Part VII collectively bound after the text leaves. Text leaves of Pleurotomaria and Gervillia bound in twice. Stamp on first prospectus page, otherwise very good, clean except for a few occasional spots. In all a very good copy. No complete copies have been auctioned since WWII. Caprotti II, p. 57 (221); Nissen ZBI, 3921; Petit, R. E. (2006) Notes on Sowerby's The genera of recent and fossil shells ( 1821-1834). Archives of Natural History 33(1), pp. 71-89; Petit, R. E. (2009) George Brettingham Sowerby, I, II & III: their conchological publications and molluscan taxa, pp. 9-12.