DENTON, Sherman B.

As Nature Shows Them. Moths and Butterflies of the United States East

Item #77484

DENTON, Sherman B. As Nature Shows Them. Moths and Butterflies of the United States East of the Rocky Mountains. Boston: Bradlee Whidden, 1900. 4tos. 2 vols. x,[6],161; xiv,[3],164-361pp., plus numerous halftone illustrations and ten nature-printed and handcolored plates. Half title in both volumes. Contemporary 3/4 green morocco and marbled boards, spines gilt with raised bands in five compartments, lettered in gilt in the second, the others with repeat decoration of a delicate moth tool, A.e.g. Some shelfwear and wear to extremities, joints a bit tender, spines very slightly browned. Interior near fine. Very good. Bennett, p.33. McGrath, p.177. Reese, Stamped with a National Character 107. From an edition limited to 500 copies (this is copy 242). A sumptuous color plate book on the moths and butterflies of the United States east of the Rockies. The color plates in this work are quite remarkable as, while the bodies are handcolored engravings, the wings are impressions from the actual insects' wings pressed onto the paper. In the preface Denton describes his labors as he travelled widely in search of specimens: "The colored plates, or Nature Prints, used in the work, are direct transfers from the insects themselves; that is to say, the scales of the wings of the insects are transferred to paper while the bodies are printed from engravings and afterward colored by hand....I have had to make over fifty thousand of these transfers for the entire edition, not being able to get anyone to help me who would do the work as I desired it done....I will say, however, that there was never a laborer more in love with his work." The results are truly stunning.

Price: $3,500.00