Album de la jeunesse : mélange d’histoire naturelle, minéraux, plantes, animaux,

leur emploi dans la vie : quelques élémens des sciences exactes : tableaux astronomiques, cosmographiques et géographiques, costumes, naturels de diverses contrées du globe, anecdotes curieuses, chasses on pêches, d’après nos célèbres voyageurs, accompagné de courtes explications. Paris : Librairie de Gide fils, [1830?]. Oblong quarto, later papered boards with the front panel of the original binding preserved, front paste-down with ex libris of the Bibliotheque du Chateau de Laplagne and the armorial bookplate of M. Laplagne Barris, free endpaper with contemporary owner’s inscription ‘Paul Laplagne Barris’, 42 pp, [60] copperplate engraved plates, sound and bright throughout, a fine copy.

An exceptionally beautiful children’s geography and natural history, covering astronomy, zoology, botany and ethnology. The plates accompanying the text are superbly rendered, and include several Australian Aboriginal scenes: possum hunt; kangaroo hunt; bird hunt, and fishing in a canoe, as well as a group of warriors in ochres and a family in their encampment at night. The ethnological subjects are interspersed with delicate illustrations of botanical and insect specimens, dramatic whaling scenes and pictures of wild animals in combat.

Copies are recorded in two Australian collections (State Library of New South Wales; National Library of Australia).