Rare Books

Early Foundations of Natural History

The important volumes below laid a foundation for an explosion of interest in scientific classification for plants and animals. Building on these works, in the eighteenth century, Buffon and Linnaeus devoted themselves to immense classification projects which had an enduring impact on the field.

• De rerum natura by Lucretius (2nd Aldine edition, 1515). Titus Lucretius Carus’s influential work of natural philosophy, demonstrating the workings of his model of a universe based on the atom as the fundamental particle (originally c. 99–c. 55 BC).
   
• Sylva Sylvarum: Or a Naturall Historie in Ten Centuries by Francis Bacon (1627). An anthology of one thousand paragraphs, mostly extracted from ancient books, as well as Bacon's own experiments and observations.
   
• De Monstrorum Natura by Fortunio Liceti (1634). The first illustrated edition of this classic of teratology.
   
• Vlyssis Aldrouandi Philosophi et Medici Bononiensis by Ulisse Aldrovandi (1638). Carl Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon reckoned Aldrovandi (1522-1605) the father of natural history studies.
   
• The Anatomy of Plants by Nehemiah Grew (first edition, 1682). Grew is considered by many to be one of the founders of the study of plant anatomy.
   
• De Motu Animalium by Giovanni Borelli (first edition, 1685). In this classic work, Borelli managed to explain how the muscles of animals moved based on the science of mechanics.
   
• Historia Plantarum Generalis by John Ray (three volumes, 1693-1704). Ray describes some 18,000 plants and sets up the species as the basic unit of taxonomy.
   
• Histoire Naturelle by Georges L. L. Buffon and Jacques Lacépède (complete set, 1749). Buffon's masterpiece is the comprehensive account of our entire knowledge of natural history, geology, and anthropology. Of the 50 volumes he hoped to produce, only 36 were completed in his lifetime, and 8 more were produced by the count de Lacépède.
   
• Species Plantarum by Carl Linnaeus (first edition, 1753). Linnaeus classified every known species of plant and formalized binomial nomenclature.

Botanical Illustration

The collections feature countless beautiful works of plant-related artwork, from early illustrated herbals to contemporary botanical illustration. An herbal is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a book containing the names and descriptions of herbs or of plants in general, with their properties and virtues. Though utilitarian in purpose, herbals are often noted for the beauty of their illustrations, and thus many are included in the McIlhenny Collection. After the early modern era, botanical illustration emerged out of this herbal tradition. A collection highlight is the twentieth-century work of talented botanical illustrator Margaret Stones documenting the flora of Louisiana (pictured below). The following list offers a few special examples of the diversity within this category.

Other Botanical Works

Special Collections also holds a number of works that represent historic moments in our understanding of botany.

Zoological Works

While ornithology is a major focus, many volumes in other areas of zoology are also available.  Of particular note is Louis Renard's colorful, whimsical, and valuable work Poissons, Ecrivisses, et Crabes.

Geology

Special Collections holds seminal works in the history of geological studies, from Hutton to Agassiz.  Many of these volumes feature illustrated plates with geological sketches and maps.

• Thaumatographia naturalis, in decem classes distincta by Jan Jonston (1632). Jonston's encyclopedia of nature. In the third part, “Meteorum”, Jonston deals mainly with atmospheric phenomena and the underground movements of the Earth’s crust. The fourth part, ”Fossilium”, treats of minerals, with particular attention to the soils applicable in medical treatment. Kerosene, asphalts, amber and jet make up one group called “earth oils”, and all more or less liquid minerals form the group of “earth juices.”
   
• Protogaea by Gottfried Leibniz (1749). Leibniz's study of fossils is another early predecessor to the modern study of geology.
   
• Dissertations on Different Subjects in Natural Philosophy by James Hutton (1792). Hutton is considered the father of modern geology.
   
• Sections & Views, Illustrative of Geological Phaenomena by Henry Thomas de la Beche (1830). De la Beche published this series of line drawings to promote more accurate depictions of geological formations.
   
• Principle of Geology by Charles Lyell (1837). Lyell's most famous work, backed by observations from his travels. Lyell developed Hutton's uniformitarian theory and argued that the geological development of the Earth has taken an immense amount of time. Special Collections also owns other editions and works by Lyell.
   
• A Monograph of the British Fossil Brachiopoda by Thomas Davidson. The great task of Davidson’s life was this monograph, published by the Palaeontographical Society (1850–1886), which contains the entire series of Brachiopoda collected by HMS Challenger. Contains more than 200 plates drawn by the author.
   
• Geological Sketches by Louis Agassiz (1866). Agassiz made important advances in ichthyological classification, even classifying extinct species, and in geological history, including the founding of glaciology.

Charles Darwin & His Contemporaries

A rare first edition of Darwin's Descent of Man is a highlight of the nineteenth-century natural history collections.  Darwin's works can be viewed alongside works by Lamarck, Spencer, and other scientists who influenced the development of evolutionary theory.