Rattlesnake Bindery

Rattlesnake Books’ dedicated in-house bindery where all work from unique designer bindings through conservation to repairs and rebinds are undertaken. Please email or phone for a quote or to discuss a commission.

Dr. Goldsmith, ‘A Natural History of Remarkable Beasts, Serpents, Insects, and Reptiles explaining their Natures, Dispositions, Habits &c. interspersed with several interesting characteristic anecdotes and embellished with numerous accurate engravings on wood’, no date/1820s, London, approx. 150 black/white wood cut illustrations, pp 184, 24mo. Previous owner’s inscription on title page dated February 1834.

Fine/Designer Binding. Full leather – light brown goat with red inlay; natural perch, black goat and alum tawed pig onlays; mother-of-pearl inlays; top edge gilt; blind tooled lettering; hand sewn silk head bands; Resho Bhutan end papers.

Cover illustration mimics crocodile wood cut from p. 121 in leather.

SOLD

Charles Bell, ‘Engravings of the Arteries, Illustrating the Second Volume of the Anatomy of the Human Body…and serving as An Introduction to the Surgery of the Arteries’, quarto (10¼” x 7¼”), London, T.N. Longman & O. Rees, 1801, pp 50, ten fine full page hand coloured engravings, publishers advertisements at end. Previous owner’s name and date (1829) in copperplate script top right title page, pages age darkened.

Fine Binding. Full reindeer leather with 23c decoration and lettering, leather joints, raised bands, hand marbled doublure and end paper, handmade paper fly leaves, all edges dyed and speckled, double core hand sewn silk head bands.

A1 & E2 sympathetically reproduced by binder.

An important work in the history of medicine.