On "Sharpe's Birds of Paradise" with DAVID ATTENBOROUGH

Sharpe's Birds of Paradise by Richard Bowdler Sharpe
http://www.foliosociety.com/book/SBP/...

Your opportunity to own an extraordinary work of natural history

Only 1,000 copies of this book will be produced for sale, each hand-numbered on a special limitation page.


With their extravagant, sweeping plumage and glorious iridescent colours, birds of paradise appear almost mythical: indeed it was once thought that they lived entirely in the air, only falling to the ground when they died. Their plumes have been exchanged as currency and worn in sovereigns' crowns, and they played a part in helping Darwin, together with A . R. Wallace, formulate his theory of evolution. At the end of the 19th century, Richard Bowdler Sharpe published his Monograph of the Paradiseidae and Ptilonorhynchidae. Dedicated entirely to birds of paradise and bower-birds, it is one of the greatest bird books and, for many, the most beautiful ever created.
'The Folio Society has produced a truly remarkable edition of one of the greatest of all bird books. Birds of paradise are among the most spectacular and colourful creatures on earth, and this book displays them in all their extraordinary beauty and variety'
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
At the time when Sharpe's Birds of Paradise was produced, lithographic plate reproduction had reached its peak of subtlety and precision. The illustrations showed these fabulous birds in radiant colour and exquisite detail. Their beauty is breathtaking -- from the Great Sicklebilled Bird of Paradise, with its shimmering plumage and long, sweeping tail feathers, to the Emperor Bird of Paradise with its foamy white and golden plumage. The book is an ornithological and artistic triumph.
David Attenborough has written a foreword to this new Folio Society edition, in which he gives a fascinating account of the spell these birds have cast across the centuries, prized by every society that came across them, from indigenous tribes of New Guinea to the King of Siam. More personally, they are prized by Attenborough himself, who first came across this book in a library as a boy: 'I was astounded then by the birds' beauty. And I am in thrall to them still.'