MUDIE, Robert. The Feathered Tribes of the British Islands.

MUDIE, Robert. The Feathered Tribes of the British Islands.The beginnings of the Baxter Process MUDIE, Robert. The Feathered Tribes of the British Islands. London: Whittaker & Co. 1834. Two vols, 8vo. Original green cloth, gilt lettering to spine, contemporary gilt armorial supralibros of James Dearden (17981862, BAB, stamp 1) Justice of the Peace and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, to front cover of vol. I; pp. xxvi, [2 (list of plates)], 379, [1 (blank)], [6 (printers prospectus)], [2 (ads)], with 10

The beginnings of the Baxter Process

MUDIE, Robert. The Feathered Tribes of the British Islands. London: Whittaker & Co. 1834.

Two vols, 8vo. Original green cloth, gilt lettering to spine, contemporary gilt armorial supralibros of James Dearden (1798–1862, BAB, stamp 1) Justice of the Peace and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, to front cover of vol. I; pp. xxvi, [2 (list of plates)], 379, [1 (blank)], [6 (printer’s prospectus)], [2 (ads)], with 10 hand-coloured plates (the last not in the list of plates); II: 391, [8 (ads)], with 9 hand-coloured plates; both volumes with chromoxylographic title-page vignettes by Baxter and lithographic in-text illustrations; endpapers of vol. I renewed; small marginal losses to 3 ff. of vol. I, sporadic light foxing to foredges of both vols and to vol. II title, otherwise a very good set; bookplate of Dearden to front pastedown of vol. I; bookplate of Horatio Noble Pym (1844–1896), book collector and editor, to front pastedown of vol. II; bookplate of Hugh Fattorini (1934–2005), the noted natural history book collector and dealer, and red ink shelf stamp ‘HNP’ to front free endpaper of vol. II.

First edition, the first book to contain examples of Baxter’s innovative polychromatic printing method, published a year before Baxter patented his highly successful technique.

Robert Mudie (1777–1842) was a prolific and versatile author, and this was the first instalment in his series of books on natural history, each of which combined attractive and authoritative text with charming illustrations. The publication of the present work marked Mudie’s first collaboration with George Baxter (1804–1867), who had recently invented a revolutionary method of printing in colour with a series of wooden blocks. Mudie remarks in his preface: ‘I should mention that the vignettes on the title pages are novelties, being the first successful specimen of what may be termed POLYCHROMATIC PRINTING, or printing in “many colours” from wooden blocks … Baxter has, I believe, completed what was the last project of the great Bewick, but which that truly original and admirable genius did not live to accomplish’ (pp. xii-xiii).

Baxter’s innovation is still recognised as a triumph: ‘From the middle of the 1830s George Baxter began producing in London his celebrated prints which used an intaglio steel plate, usually in aquatint, for the image, with colour from up to twenty woodblocks … The use of the intaglio plate, with its special potential for fine but deeply inked lines, gave a dramatic quality to the Baxter process which was lacking in pure chromoxylography or chromolithography’ (Gascoigne, p. 29).

Aside from Baxter’s vignettes, the nineteen plates, often depicting two birds to a plate on a plain background, are extremely delicate and finely coloured.

Nissen VIB 654; Zimmer p. 446 (4th edition only); Wood p. 473-4 (later editions only). See Bamber Gascoigne, How to Identify Prints.

SKU: 2111949