John Gould - Birds of Paradise. Sotheran's Rare Books

The last of the fine bird books: John Gould and Richard Bowdler Sharpe's Birds of Paradise

View it at Sotheran's: https://sotherans.co.uk/products/goul...

This monumental two volume monograph came after the death of John Gould and is a summation of the great ornithologist's work. It features 79 sumptuous hand-coloured plates featuring each of the brightly coloured, exotic and extravagantly plumed birds of paradise and bower birds.. The text is by the eminent ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe (1847-1909) who had completed Gould's Birds of New Guinea after his death in 1881 and who successfully rounded up the subscribers to finish this work, which Sacheverell Sitwell dubbed "“the last of the fine bird books".

This copy of the complete text and plates of this magnificent work lay uncoloured in Sotheran's vaults since it was printed in the 1890s. It was rediscovered in 2020 and has been hand-coloured by our expert colourist and bound in a fully sumptuous Victorian style in keeping with the book itself. This is a very rare modern example of traditional skills in action. Not only have these gorgeous birds been brought back to vivid life, but so has this once-lost copy of a landmark work.