Some memoirs of the life and works of George Edwards, Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies
Contributors: Edwards, George, 1694-1773, contributor, illustrator; Dandridge, Bartholomew, 1691-approximately 1755, artist; Lodge, John, -1796, engraver; Miller, John, 1715-1790?, engraver
Published: 1776
Language: eng
Number of pages: 38
Subjects: Biography; Naturalists
Other titles: Memoirs of Mr. George Edwards; Philosophical transactions.
Notes: "An account of the names and numbers of the several species of things contained in the museum of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart. and which, since his death, are placed for the use of the public in the British Museum" --Page 20.

A letter from Edwards "To the nobility, gentry, and curious in general," is quoted on page 21: "Having this day sold and delivered to Mr. James Robson, bookseller, in New Bond Street, all the remaining copies of my Natural history, in seven volumes quarto, coloured under my own immediate inspection, together with all my copper-plates, letter-press, and every article in my possession relative to it. ... [a]ll future publications of the said Natural history are the sole right and property of Mr. Robson ...."

"Addenda: since the foregoing sheets were printed off, many friends and subscribers to the late Mr. Edwards, have expressed a desire to have the papers which he communicated to the Royal Society, selected from the Philosophical transactions, and printed together to complete his Natural history. The editor ... has accordingly given what he could find worthy of notice, from that periodical work; and, in order to render these extracts still more acceptable to the public, he has re-engraved the plates of all the subjects therein described, and they now accompany the publication." --Page [27].

Species described, with their plates: Narrow beak'd crocodile; the frog fish of Surinam; the Argus, or Luen pheasant; the Snake eater; Siyah Ghush [portrayed on the same plate with the Snake eater]. Also described, without illustration, is an addenda to the account of the Service tree, Sorbus domestica (plate number 211 in the Natural history); and addenda to the account of the Common service tree, Crataegus torminalis (plate number 212 in the Natural history).

The natural history plates were drawn by Edwards and engraved by J. Lodge.

The frontispiece portrait of "Georgius Edwards, R.S.S. aetat. suae 60 AD 1754 ..." is signed: Dandridg[e] pinx.; J.S. Miller [also known as Johann Sebastian Müller] sculp.

Errata on page 38 with two entries, pertaining both to Robson's Some memoirs ... as well as to the companion work, A catalogue of the birds, beasts, fishes, insects, plants, &c. contained in Edwards's Natural history ... by Sir C. Linnaeus (1776).

Signatures: [A]1 B-K².

Anker, J. Bird books and bird art, 127

Catalogue of the Edward E. Ayer Ornithological Library page 529

extracted picklist 20081216 BHLEX

SCNHRB copy (H129945) is bound with: part 1 of G.A. Edwards' A natural history of birds. London : Printed for the author ..., MDCCXLIII [1743, i.e. 1776; the third issue of the first edition], inserted after the first two leaves of that work, and C. Linné's A catalogue of the birds, beasts, fishes, insects, plants, &c. contained in Edwards's Natural history ... with their Latin names. London : Printed for J. Robson, bookseller ..., MDCCLXXVI [1776]. Issued together? In addition, the same volume contains partie 1 of the French 1745 edition of Edwards' Natural history of birds, without the duplication of plates (containing only [6], xxi, I-LII, [1] pages); bound together subsequent to publication? Or it is possible that the French partie was included in the inventory of unsold copies that Robson acquired from Edwards and sold together with the 1776 publications).

SCNHRB copy has stamps: 1. (on front free endpaper): Division of Birds; 2. (on the verso of the title page of the first work bound in the volume): Smithsonian Institution National Museum, Jul. 26, 1905; accession number 192594.

SCNHRB copy has a modern black buckram binding with gilt-lettered spine and gray endpapers.