DA COSTA, Emanuel Mendes. Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British Conchology: Containing the Descriptions and Other Particulars of Natural History of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland: Illustrated with Figures, in English and in F… [[bmid:2125788a]]
DA COSTA, Emanuel Mendes. Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British Conchology: Containing the Descriptions and Other Particulars of Natural History of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland: Illustrated with Figures, in English and in F… [[bmid:2125788c]]
DA COSTA, Emanuel Mendes. Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British Conchology: Containing the Descriptions and Other Particulars of Natural History of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland: Illustrated with Figures, in English and in F… [[bmid:2125788d]]
DA COSTA, Emanuel Mendes. Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British Conchology: Containing the Descriptions and Other Particulars of Natural History of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland: Illustrated with Figures, in English and in F…
DA COSTA, Emanuel Mendes. Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British Conchology: Containing the Descriptions and Other Particulars of Natural History of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland: Illustrated with Figures, in English and in F… [[bmid:2125788b]]
DA COSTA, Emanuel Mendes. Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British Conchology: Containing the Descriptions and Other Particulars of Natural History of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland: Illustrated with Figures, in English and in F… [[bmid:2125788e]]

DA COSTA, Emanuel Mendes. Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British Conchology: Containing the Descriptions and Other Particulars of Natural History of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland: Illustrated with Figures, in English and in F…

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The Major Work of a Scientific Embezzler

DA COSTA, Emanuel Mendes. Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British Conchology: Containing the Descriptions and Other Particulars of Natural History of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland: Illustrated with Figures, in English and in French. London: Printed for the Author. 1778.

4to. Contemporary half calf with marbled paper sides, flat spine ruled in gilt and with red gilt morocco lettering-piece, sometime rebacked with original spine relaid; pp. xii, 1–138, [2], 139–254, vii, [2]; 17 ff. hand-coloured plates, parallel English and French text; pp. 237–242 misbound between pp. 226 and 227; bound without final leaf of subscribers; binding rubbed to extremities with slight loss to marbled paper at edges, calf to corners largely perished; light marginal spotting, mainly to prelims; occasional pencilled marginal notes mainly referring to the misbinding; a very good copy.

First edition of the first major British malacological work to follow the Linnean binomial system.

Descended from a Portuguese Sephardi family, Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717–1791) was, on the one hand, the first Jewish Fellow of the Royal Society, elected on the strength of his knowledge of shells and fossils. On the other hand, as clerk of the Royal Society he was found guilty of embezzling members’ subscription fees and in 1767 was sentenced to five years in debtors’ prison. Upon his release, he was able to scrape a living as a lecturer and shell dealer and began to rebuild his relationships. He secured the patronage of Sir Ashton Lever, the owner of the great collection that was displayed at Leicester House in London from 1775 to 1786 as the Leverian collection, and subscriptions from Thomas Martyn, Thomas Pennant, and the Dowager Duchess of Portland in order to produce this, his last and most ambitious scientific work.

Da Costa’s work was unprecedentedly comprehensive, as he paid attention to even the smallest species and gave binomial names that are still in use today. The work’s usefulness in addressing species that extend beyond British waters is shown in the bilingual text, and the book did receive a wide scientific audience. It became noted for da Costa’s approach to the Linnean system, in which he challenged and refined several of the descriptors used by Linnaeus, and for the delicacy of the plates.

ESTC T113819; Nissen 2785.

SKU: 2125788

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