Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte deBiblio.com
2.249 Ergebnisse
2026Best.-Nr. LRB27001421Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 612 pages. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1750. Ouvrage majeur de Buffon consacré à l'histoire naturelle à la classification du vivant et à la description des curiosités réunies au Cabinet du Roy. Ce premier tome témoigne de l'ambition encyclopédique du siècle des Lumières et de l'importance scientifique et bibliophilique de cette grande entreprise éditoriale. Images du livre non contractuelles English : Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1750. Major work by Buffon devoted to natural history the classification of living beings and the description of the curiosities gathered in the King's Cabinet. This first volume reflects the encyclopedic ambition of the Enlightenment and the scientific and bibliographic importance of this great editorial project. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB27001420Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 530 pages. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1750. Cette reproduction moderne de Histoire naturelle générale et particuliére avec la description du Cabinet du Roy: tome troisime de Daubenton Louis Jean Marie 1716-1799; Buffon Georges Louis Leclerc Comte de 1707-1788; Imprimerie Royale Francia rend accessible un texte ancien ou rare pour la consultation la recherche bibliographique et les collections spécialisées. Images du livre non contractuelles English : Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1750. Major work of eighteenth-century French natural history this volume from the celebrated series by Buffon and Daubenton presents an erudite and extensively illustrated study of man and the natural sciences. It reflects the encyclopedic ambition of its authors the quality of the observations and the importance of engraved plates in the dissemination of natural knowledge during the Enlightenment. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB26002890Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Idioma: Español. Aproximadamente 642 páginas. Español : Reimpresión bajo demanda. Edición original : 1750. Obra en español. Esta reproducción moderna de Histoire naturelle générale et particuliere avec la description du Cabinet du Roy:tome premier /par M. de Buffon de Auteur non identifié pone a disposición un texto antiguo o raro para la consulta la investigación bibliográfica y las colecciones especializadas. Imágenes del libro no contractuales English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1750. Text in Spanish. This first volume of Buffon's Natural History published in 1750 marks the beginning of a monumental work that revolutionized natural science in the 18th century. Buffon presents his theories on the origin of species the formation of the Earth and the classification of animals based on meticulous observations and a systematic approach. The work is part of the Enlightenment and reflects the encyclopedic ambition of its author. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25046062Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 560 pages. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1780. Ouvrage en français. Ce volume le onzième de l'Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de Buffon publié en 1780 est une oeuvre majeure de l'histoire naturelle du XVIIIe siècle. Buffon y décrit avec une précision remarquable les espèces aviaires mêlant observations scientifiques et descriptions littéraires. Cette édition est une de l'ouvrage original offrant aux chercheurs et aux amateurs une accessibilité renouvelée à ce texte fondamental. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1780. Text in French. This volume the eleventh of Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux published in 1780 is a major work of 18th-century natural history. Buffon describes avian species with remarkable precision blending scientific observations and literary descriptions. This edition is a of the original work providing researchers and enthusiasts with renewed access to this foundational text. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25046057Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 526 pages. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1775. Ouvrage en français. Ce cinquième tome de l'Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de Buffon publié en 1775 est une de l'oeuvre originale. Il s'agit d'un ouvrage fondamental de l'histoire naturelle illustrant la diversité aviaire avec une rigueur scientifique et une élégance littéraire caractéristiques de Buffon. Ce volume contribue à la compréhension des espèces ornithologiques et à l'évolution des connaissances naturalistes au XVIIIe siècle. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1775. Text in French. This fifth volume of Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux published in 1775 is a of the original work. It is a cornerstone of natural history showcasing avian diversity with the scientific rigor and literary elegance typical of Buffon. This volume contributes to the understanding of ornithological species and the evolution of naturalist knowledge in the 18th century. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25046055Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 528 pages. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1779. Ouvrage en français. Ce volume le neuvième de l'Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de Buffon publié en 1779 constitue une oeuvre majeure de l'histoire naturelle du XVIIIe siècle. Buffon y décrit avec une précision remarquable les caractéristiques les comportements et les habitats de diverses espèces d'oiseaux illustrant ainsi son approche scientifique et littéraire de la nature. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1779. Text in French. This volume the ninth of Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux published in 1779 is a major work of 18th-century natural history. Buffon describes with remarkable precision the characteristics behaviors and habitats of various bird species illustrating his scientific and literary approach to nature. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25046058Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 702 pages. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1785. Ouvrage en français. Ce volume le dix-huitième de l'Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de Buffon constitue une référence majeure en ornithologie. Publié en 1785 il offre une description détaillée des espèces aviaires illustrée par des planches anatomiques et des observations naturalistes. Buffon y développe sa vision systématique de la classification des oiseaux fondant son approche sur des critères morphologiques et comportementaux. L'ouvrage s'inscrit dans le cadre plus large de son ambitieuse entreprise encyclopédique visant à décrire et comprendre la diversité du règne animal. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1785. Text in French. This volume the eighteenth of Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux is a major reference in ornithology. Published in 1785 it provides a detailed description of bird species illustrated with anatomical plates and naturalistic observations. Buffon develops his systematic approach to bird classification based on morphological and behavioral criteria. The work is part of his broader encyclopedic project to describe and understand the diversity of the animal kingdom. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25046056Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 518 pages. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1779. Ouvrage en français. Langue: Ce volume le huitième de l'Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de Buffon publié en 1779 est une oeuvre fondamentale de l'histoire naturelle du XVIIIe siècle. Il décrit avec précision et érudition diverses espèces aviaires illustrant la curiosité scientifique et l'observation minutieuse de l'auteur. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1779. Text in French. This volume the eighth of Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux published in 1779 is a cornerstone of 18th-century natural history. It provides a detailed and scholarly account of various bird species reflecting the author's scientific curiosity and meticulous observation. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB26002893Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Idioma: Español. Aproximadamente 616 páginas. Español : Reimpresión bajo demanda. Edición original : 1753. Obra en español. Esta reproducción moderna de Histoire naturelle ge`ne`rale et particuliere avec la description du Cabinet du Roi:tome quatriáeme /par M. de Buffon M. Daubenton de Auteur non identifié pone a disposición un texto antiguo o raro para la consulta la investigación bibliográfica y las colecciones especializadas. Imágenes del libro no contractuales English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1753. Text in Spanish. This volume of Buffon's Natural History published in 1753 is a major work in the history of natural sciences. It focuses on the classification and description of animal species enriched by Daubenton's observations. The work belongs to the encyclopedic tradition of the 18th century and reflects Buffon's systematic approach to zoology. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25037627Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 550 pages. Tome 8 d'un ouvrage en plusieurs volumes. / Volume 8 of a multi-volume work. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1801. Ce volume est le premier tome de l'Histoire naturelle de Buffon une oeuvre majeure de l'histoire des sciences naturelles. Il traite de la formation de la Terre des minéraux et de l'origine de l'homme offrant une vision encyclopédique du monde naturel. L'ouvrage est illustré de planches détaillées et constitue une référence fondamentale pour l'étude de la biologie et de la géologie. Images du livre non contractuelles English : Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1801. This volume is the first part of Buffon's Natural History a seminal work in the history of natural sciences. It covers the formation of the Earth minerals and the origin of man providing an encyclopedic view of the natural world. The work is illustrated with detailed plates and remains a key reference for the study of biology and geology. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25037631Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 534 pages. Tome 2 d'un ouvrage en plusieurs volumes. / Volume 2 of a multi-volume work. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1801. Ce volume est le premier tome de l'Histoire naturelle de Buffon une oeuvre majeure de l'histoire des sciences naturelles. Il traite de la formation de la Terre des minéraux et de l'histoire de l'homme offrant une synthèse des connaissances de l'époque. L'ouvrage est illustré de planches détaillées et constitue une référence incontournable pour les naturalistes et les historiens de la science. Images du livre non contractuelles English : Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1801. This volume is the first part of Buffon's Natural History a landmark work in the history of natural sciences. It covers the formation of the Earth minerals and the history of mankind providing a comprehensive overview of contemporary knowledge. The work is illustrated with detailed plates and remains an essential reference for naturalists and historians of science. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB26002891Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Idioma: Español. Aproximadamente 582 páginas. Español : Reimpresión bajo demanda. Edición original : 1750. Obra en español. Esta reproducción moderna de Histoire naturelle générale et particuliére avec la description du Cabinet du Roy:tome troisième /par M. Daubenton M. de Buffon de Auteur non identifié pone a disposición un texto antiguo o raro para la consulta la investigación bibliográfica y las colecciones especializadas. Imágenes del libro no contractuales English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1750. Text in Spanish. This volume of Buffon's Natural History published in 1750 includes the renowned section "Natural History of Man". It is a major work of 18th-century scientific literature exemplifying Buffon's naturalist method and his encyclopedic vision of the living world. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB136379Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 642 pages. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1749. Ouvrage majeur de Buffon fondateur de l'histoire naturelle moderne offrant une vaste synthèse sur l'organisation du monde vivant les espèces la classification et l'observation des phénomènes naturels. Cette édition intéressera les collectionneurs et chercheurs pour sa place dans l'histoire des sciences et de l'édition du XVIIIe siècle. Images du livre non contractuelles English : Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1749. Major work by Buffon a foundational figure in modern natural history presenting a broad synthesis of the living world species classification and the observation of natural phenomena. This edition will interest collectors and researchers for its importance in the history of science and eighteenth-century publishing. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25037635Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 590 pages. Tome 9 d'un ouvrage en plusieurs volumes. / Volume 9 of a multi-volume work. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1801. Cette reproduit fidèlement l'de 1801 de l'Histoire naturelle de Buffon une oeuvre majeure de l'histoire des sciences naturelles. Elle couvre divers aspects de la nature notamment la géologie l'anatomie humaine la zoologie et la reproduction des espèces. Destinée aux chercheurs historiens des sciences et amateurs de littérature scientifique cette édition est un témoignage précieux de la pensée naturaliste du XVIIIe siècle. Images du livre non contractuelles English : Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1801. This on-demand reprint faithfully reproduces the 1801 of Buffon's Natural History a major work in the history of natural sciences. It covers various aspects of nature including geology human anatomy zoology and species reproduction. Aimed at researchers science historians and enthusiasts of scientific literature this edition is a valuable testament to 18th-century naturalist thought. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25046061Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 576 pages. Tome 10 d'un ouvrage en plusieurs volumes. / Volume 10 of a multi-volume work. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1770. Ouvrage en français. Cette réimpression fidèle de l'Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de Buffon publiée à l'origine en 1770 est un ouvrage fondamental de l'ornithologie et de l'histoire naturelle. Buffon naturaliste et écrivain français y développe une analyse détaillée des espèces aviaires mêlant observations scientifiques et descriptions littéraires. L'ouvrage s'inscrit dans la continuité de son grand projet encyclopédique Les Époques de la nature et témoigne de l'évolution des connaissances naturalistes au XVIIIe siècle. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1770. Text in French. This faithful reprint of Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux originally published in 1770 is a cornerstone work in ornithology and natural history. Buffon a French naturalist and writer provides a detailed analysis of avian species blending scientific observations with literary descriptions. The work is part of his broader encyclopedic project Les Époques de la nature and reflects the evolution of naturalist knowledge in the 18th century. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25046053Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 530 pages. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1780. Ouvrage en français. Ce volume du tome 12 de l'Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de Buffon publié en 1780 est une de l'oeuvre originale. Buffon y développe sa description systématique des oiseaux illustrant leur diversité et leur place dans la nature. Cette édition est un outil précieux pour les naturalistes les historiens des sciences et les amateurs d'ornithologie. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1780. Text in French. This volume from the 12th tome of Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux originally published in 1780 is a of the original work. Buffon presents a systematic description of birds highlighting their diversity and role in nature. This edition is a valuable resource for naturalists historians of science and ornithology enthusiasts. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB25046048Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 604 pages. Tome 6 d'un ouvrage en plusieurs volumes. / Volume 6 of a multi-volume work. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1770. Ouvrage en français. Ce volume de l'Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de Buffon publié en 1770 est un ouvrage fondateur de l'ornithologie scientifique. Il combine observations naturalistes descriptions anatomiques et réflexions philosophiques illustrant la méthode encyclopédique chère aux Lumières. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1770. Text in French. This volume of Buffon's Natural History of Birds published in 1770 is a foundational work in scientific ornithology. It combines naturalistic observations anatomical descriptions and philosophical reflections embodying the encyclopedic method central to the Enlightenment. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB27040207Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 590 pages. Tome 15 d'un ouvrage en plusieurs volumes. / Volume 15 of a multi-volume work. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1749. Ouvrage en français. Ouvrage fondamental de l'histoire naturelle cette édition rassemble les travaux de Buffon et de ses collaborateurs sur la théorie de la Terre l'étude des animaux des minéraux et des oiseaux. Le Cabinet du Roi décrit par Daubenton constitue une partie majeure de cette entreprise encyclopédique. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1749. Text in French. This foundational work on natural history compiles Buffon's and his collaborators' studies on the theory of the Earth the study of animals minerals and birds. The Cabinet of the King described by Daubenton is a major component of this encyclopedic endeavor. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB27040200Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 620 pages. Tome 4 d'un ouvrage en plusieurs volumes. / Volume 4 of a multi-volume work. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1749. Ouvrage en français. OEuvre majeure de Georges-Louis Leclerc comte de Buffon cette Histoire naturelle constitue un monument de la pensée scientifique du XVIIIe siècle. Elle aborde la théorie de la Terre la classification des animaux des minéraux et des oiseaux ainsi que la description du cabinet du roi. Ce travail fondateur a profondément influencé la biologie et la géologie modernes. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1749. Text in French. A major work by Georges-Louis Leclerc Comte de Buffon this Histoire naturelle is a cornerstone of 18th-century scientific thought. It covers the theory of the Earth the classification of animals minerals and birds as well as the description of the king's cabinet. This foundational work had a profound impact on modern biology and geology. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB27040209Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 556 pages. Tome 11 d'un ouvrage en plusieurs volumes. / Volume 11 of a multi-volume work. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1749. Ouvrage en français. OEuvre majeure de Buffon cette Histoire naturelle est une synthèse encyclopédique des connaissances scientifiques du XVIIIe siècle. Elle aborde la théorie de la Terre la zoologie l'anatomie comparée et la minéralogie illustrant la pensée naturaliste de l'époque. Le Cabinet du roi décrit par Daubenton témoigne des collections royales et de leur importance pour la recherche. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1749. Text in French. A major work by Buffon this Natural History is an encyclopedic synthesis of 18th-century scientific knowledge. It covers the theory of the Earth zoology comparative anatomy and mineralogy reflecting the naturalist thought of the period. The King's Cabinet described by Daubenton highlights the royal collections and their significance for research. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB27040222Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 640 pages. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1749. Ouvrage en français. Cette édition reproduit l'oeuvre monumentale de Georges-Louis Leclerc comte de Buffon considérée comme l'un des fondements de la science naturelle moderne. L'ouvrage comprend des volumes couvrant la théorie de la Terre l'histoire générale des animaux la description détaillée des collections royales notamment les mammifères et les oiseaux ainsi que des suppléments sur les minéraux. Buffon y développe ses théories sur l'évolution la géologie et la classification des espèces tout en intégrant les observations de collaborateurs comme Daubenton et Gueneau de Montbeillard. Une référence incontournable pour les historiens des sciences les naturalistes et les chercheurs en biologie. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1749. Text in French. This modern reproduction of Histoire naturelle générale et particuliére avec la description du cabinet du roi by Buffon Georges Louis Leclerc comte de 1707-1788 makes an old or rare text available for consultation bibliographic research and specialized collections. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB27040205Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 504 pages. Tome 10 d'un ouvrage en plusieurs volumes. / Volume 10 of a multi-volume work. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1749. Ouvrage en français. Ce volume est une de l'oeuvre majeure de Buffon couvrant la théorie de la terre l'histoire naturelle de l'homme la description du cabinet du roi ainsi que les quadrupèdes les oiseaux et les minéraux. L'ouvrage initialement publié en 44 volumes est ici présenté dans une édition moderne facilitant l'accès à ce texte fondateur de l'histoire naturelle. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1749. Text in French. This volume is a of Buffon's seminal work encompassing the theory of the earth the natural history of man the description of the king's cabinet as well as quadrupeds birds and minerals. Originally published in 44 volumes this modern edition provides easy access to this foundational. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
2026Best.-Nr. LRB27040208Paris: Editions Recreasoft 2026 Langue : Français. Environ 514 pages. Tome 14 d'un ouvrage en plusieurs volumes. / Volume 14 of a multi-volume work. Français : Réimpression à la demande. Édition originale : 1749. Ouvrage en français. OEuvre majeure de Georges-Louis Leclerc comte de Buffon cette Histoire naturelle est un monument de la littérature scientifique du XVIIIe siècle. Publiée en 44 volumes elle couvre l'étude systématique des animaux des minéraux et des phénomènes géologiques avec des descriptions détaillées du cabinet du roi. Buffon y développe une vision naturaliste innovante mêlant observation et théorie. Images du livre non contractuelles English: Print-on-demand reprint. Original edition : 1749. Text in French. A major work by Georges-Louis Leclerc Comte de Buffon this Histoire naturelle is a monumental achievement in 18th-century scientific literature. Published in 44 volumes it systematically explores animals minerals and geological phenomena including detailed descriptions of the king's cabinet. Buffon presents an innovative naturalist vision blending observation and theory. Book images are non-contractual. Editions Recreasoft. Softcover. New. Editions Recreasoft paperback
1803Best.-Nr. 71345Paris: De L'Imprimerie de Crapelet 1803. Nouvelle Édition. Leather Bound. Very Good. Twenty-fourmo 13.5 cm Contemporary 3/4 brown leather with speckled paper over boards. Pale red and green gilt stamped leather spine labels. Six gilt ruled compartments on the spines. Illustrated plates the majority with tissue-guards. This specific set has a frontispiece portrait of Buffon 781 illustrated plates and 5 folding tables the exact number of plates found in each volume is available upon request. Text in French. Extremities very lightly rubbed and soiled. A couple of boards with small red stains. Spines sporadically mottled. Occasional minor chipping to spine ends and a handful of spine labels with loss. Underlying boards peeking through at corners. Endpapers have a previous owner's red ink stamps a small faint ink stamp in black and minute contemporary numerical notations. Stitching visible in gutters here and there. Pp. 125-130 volume 12 are partially detached. Pp. 29-32 volume 44 and pp. 93-96 volume 77 are completely detached but present. Skillful repair to fore-edge margin of p. 169 volume 59. Pages bound out of sequence in volume 59 between p. 136 and p. 185. Periodic printing errors occur in the set's pagination. In a handful of plates the sky in the background appears stained and there is a bit of red staining to plate at p. 258 in volume 70. Two reptile illustrations in volume 42 are a trifle trimmed at the head. Additional Collation Notes: Curiously volumes 56-65 are the only volumes in which the plates are numbered. In volume 58 I believe plate 15 is mislabeled as 13 and it is found between plates 23 and 24. The books are very structurally sound and the pages are strikingly clean and bright. Contents: Théorie de la Terre. Époques de la Nature; Discours Généraux; Quadrupèdes; Oiseaux; Histoire Naturelle des Minéraux; Histoire Naturelle des Poissons; Histoire Naturelle des Reptiles; Histoire Naturelle des Insectes; Histoire Naturelle des Coquilles; Histoire Naturelle des Vers; Histoire Naturelle des Crustacés; Histoire Naturelle des Végétaux. An edition published posthumously of Buffon's most famous work. Buffon's Histoire Naturelle was continued in part by others after his death. It was translated into various languages and read throughout Europe. French naturalist George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon 1707-1788 Comte de Buffon is viewed as the most influential biologist of the 18th century epitomizing the revolutionary changes the Enlightenment brought to the study of nature. The title of Count was bestowed on him by Louis XV in recognition of his accomplishments rather than by birth. He is most famous for Histoire Naturelle a comprehensive work on natural history first begun in 1749. De Buffon began his studies at the College of Godrans in Dijon where he was only an average student. Originally his father wanted him to have a legal career however in 1728 he went to Angers where he studied medicine botany and mathematics. In 1739 he was appointed keeper of the Jardin du Roi the royal botanical garden now the Jardin des Plantes and of the accompanying museum. There he was tasked with creating a catalog of the royal collections in natural history which he transformed into an undertaking to produce a record of the whole of nature. This became his monumental work Histoire Naturelle Générale et Particulière which was the first modern effort to methodically present all existing knowledge in the subjects of natural history geology and anthropology in one publication. Buffon's ideas challenged traditional biological classification and introduced theories of evolutionary thought roughly one hundred years before Darwin. Comte de Buffon is also remembered for his argument that the world had a lengthy history rather than being only a few thousand years old as the naturalists of the 1600s believed. In addition he felt that scientific writing should be energetic and graceful in style thereby allowing his work to be accessible to a wide audience in Europe and beyond. Buffon's work articulated that species were different throughout the world that the planet was much older than the Bible suggested and that plant and animal species were related in intricate ways. Buffon's bold way of looking at the world laid the groundwork for later revolutionary thinkers who are responsible for much of what we know about the natural world. An attractive set of a pivotal work of the Enlightenment richly illustrated with numerous hand-colored plates. De L'Imprimerie de Crapelet unknown
1804Best.-Nr. 6665Paris: De l'Imprimerie Royale later Imprimerie des Bâtimens du Roi; Hôtel de Thou; Plassan 1804. First edition. First edition a very fine uniformly-bound contemporary set with the separately-issued and frequently-absent atlas to the Minéraux of the first work to present natural history as a continuous secular narrative-from planetary formation through geology and mineralogy to the quadrupeds birds fishes and cetaceans and at last to the human races-and the work in which across fifty-five years and four political regimes the biblical chronology that had organised European natural science since antiquity ceased to be the only frame within which educated readers could discuss the age of the earth. In the Époques de la Nature 1778 Buffon proposed seven epochs of earth history and from cooling experiments in his own forge at Montbard estimated its age at roughly seventy-five thousand years; in unpublished notes his private estimate reaches three million-the order of magnitude Lyell would later extract from stratigraphy and Darwin require for natural selection to operate. . The Founding Treatise of Secular Science. First edition of the first work to present natural history as a continuous secular narrative from planetary formation to the human races and the work in which across fifty-five years and four political regimes the biblical chronology that had organised European natural science since antiquity ceased to be the only frame within which educated readers could discuss the age of the earth. Ernst Mayr called Buffon "the father of all thought in natural history" at his time; the DSB records that he "established the intellectual framework within which most naturalists up to Darwin worked." Buffon was appointed Intendant du Jardin du Roi in 1739 at thirty-two and spent nearly half a century converting the royal cabinet of natural-history specimens into a compendium. At its close under Lacépède's hand in 1804 it comprised forty-four quarto volumes more than twelve hundred engraved plates and a style so supple that Buffon's elegies on individual species remained set texts in French lycées into the twentieth century. Uniformly bound in contemporary French mottled calf and preserving all forty-four text volumes together with the separately-issued and frequently-absent atlas to the Minéraux the present copy is of a completeness and coherence uncommon in a publication whose fifty-five-year issue spanned four successive Parisian imprints. Within thirty years of the final volume Lyell was writing the Principles of Geology; within sixty Darwin the Origin. The publishing history ran for fifty-five years through four imprints. The first three volumes appeared together in the autumn of 1749 from the Imprimerie Royale sold out in six weeks were reprinted three times within the same interval and provoked the Sorbonne's faculty of theology into delivering Buffon a list of propositions judged heretical-to which Buffon submitted a carefully calibrated retraction while continuing to print the offending volumes unchanged. The initial prospectus of 1748 had promised fifteen volumes in three divisions; by the time Buffon died in 1788 thirty-five were in print a thirty-sixth was on the press and the plan of covering the vegetable kingdom had quietly been abandoned. The seventh and final Supplément appeared posthumously in 1789 through Lacépède's editorship; the fifth volume of the Minéraux containing the Traité de l'aimant had issued a year earlier from the Imprimerie des Bâtimens du Roi and was accompanied by a separately-issued atlas of folding maps and tables. Lacépède then continued the animal-kingdom programme with the Quadrupèdes ovipares et Serpens 1788-89 the Poissons 1798-An XII and the Cétacées 1804. The combined output of four imprints across three generations of Parisian printers-the Imprimerie Royale the Imprimerie des Bâtimens du Roi the Hôtel de Thou under Panckoucke and Plassan and Plassan imprimeur-libraire-is the reason a uniformly-bound contemporary set is uncommon. Volume I opens the series with the Premier Discours: De la manière d'étudier et de traiter l'histoire naturelle a forty-page polemic against Linnaean classification that argues from a position of mathematical and empirical rigour rare in the literature of the period that species as Linnaeus conceived them were artificial abstractions imposed on the continuous variability of individuals and that a taxonomy built on stamen-counts and pistil-counts did not correspond to nature. The attack was political as well as philosophical. Linnaeus's Systema Naturae Leiden 1735 had already been adopted as the common grammar of European zoology; Buffon's Discours delivered from within the most prestigious press in France asserted that the Swede's method was a convenience of memory mistaken for a description of the world. The volume continues with the Second Discours: Histoire et théorie de la Terre dated by Buffon himself "à Montbard le 3 octobre 1744" which proposes a cosmogony in which the planets were struck from the sun by the oblique impact of a comet and have been cooling ever since and with the Preuves de la théorie de la Terre in which Buffon develops his theory across seventeen articles and provides two engraved terrestrial maps drawn under his supervision by Robert de Vaugondy fils. These arguments delivered within a volume bearing the royal arms of France on its title-page vignette constituted a public challenge to Mosaic cosmogony. The geological argument reached its mature form a generation later in the fifth Supplément the Époques de la Nature 1778 published when Buffon was seventy-one. Here he proposed seven epochs of the earth's history estimated their combined duration at roughly 75000 years and in unpublished manuscript notes pushed his private estimate to three million-an order of magnitude consistent with the timescales that Lyell would later extract from stratigraphy and that Darwin would require for natural selection to operate. Beyond the number the Époques argues by accumulation: Buffon marshals fossil molluscs at Alpine altitudes the decay of volcanic emissions the rate at which heated iron spheres cool in Buffon's own forge at Montbard and the distribution of living species across climate zones and weaves these into a cumulative inductive case in which each line of evidence corroborates the others. The technique is no longer antiquarian but probabilistic; Buffon had published a French translation of Newton's Method of Fluxions in 1740 and would publish original work on geometric probability. When the Époques reached Edinburgh and Cambridge in the 1780s it announced to Anglophone readers that the earth's antiquity had become a quantitative problem rather than a scriptural one. The core of the programme is the animal kingdom. Volumes 4 through 15 1753-1767 treat the quadrupeds in an arrangement that combines Buffon's natural-historical essays with Daubenton's anatomical descriptions-a division of labour Buffon defended in the Preface to volume IV and that Daubenton eventually came to resent his name disappearing from the later volumes. The Oiseaux volumes 1770-1783 are the work of Buffon with Philibert Guéneau de Montbeillard and the Abbé Bexon and assume decisively that geographic distribution is a datum of zoology rather than an incidental fact about individual animals-a premise that commits the Histoire naturelle to the biogeographic thinking which Alfred Russel Wallace would systematise a century later. The Minéraux volumes I-V 1783-1788 extend the account to the inorganic world and conclude with the Traité de l'aimant Buffon's last publication in his lifetime accompanied by the atlas that the present set preserves. Lacépède's eight continuation volumes close the series with the Ovipares et Serpens the Poissons five volumes 1798-An XII drawing on the manuscript collections of Philibert Commerson and the Cétacées 1804-the whole project begun under Louis XV and finished under the Consulate of Bonaparte. The plate programme numbering 1275 copper engravings including the portrait frontispiece of Buffon and twelve folding maps was entrusted principally to Jacques de Sève and his son Jacques-Eustache de Sève with additional designs by Buvée l'Amériquain Oudry and Baron and engravings by Baquoy Basan Moitte and Tardieu. De Sève père is the designing sensibility that defines the visual character of the Histoire naturelle: his quadrupeds stand in pastoral European landscapes-villages rivers mountains ruins-that place each species within a habitat rather than isolating it on the diagrammatic ground of the pre-Linnaean iconotheca. The aesthetic choice is not decorative. It performs Buffon's thesis that species are functions of geography; the elk against a Norwegian spruce-line and the jerboa against a North African dune argue in visual shorthand a zoogeography that the text elaborates. The plates in the present set are in the original uncoloured state as issued by the Imprimerie Royale and its successor presses; the hand-coloured Planches enluminées of Edme-Louis Daubenton 1765-1786 1008 plates issued separately to accompany the de luxe folio edition of the Oiseaux are a distinct publication and do not belong to the quarto edition. Buffon was born Georges-Louis Leclerc at Montbard in Burgundy on 7 September 1707 the son of a magistrate of the Estates of Burgundy who in 1714 inherited a substantial fortune from a maternal relative and acquired the lordship of Buffon - the toponym from which the future comte took the name by which he is universally known. He was educated by the Jesuits at Dijon studied mathematics at Angers and travelled in Italy and England in 1730-1733 in the company of the young Duke of Kingston and his Genevan tutor Nathaniel Hickman. Election to the Académie des Sciences followed at twenty-six in 1734. His earliest publications were French translations of Newton's Method of Fluxions 1740 and Stephen Hales's Vegetable Staticks 1735 and an original 1733 communication to the Académie on the geometric probability of a needle dropped at random across a ruled floor - the "needle problem" that bears his name in the founding literature of integral geometry. The 1739 appointment as Intendant du Jardin du Roi secured through the patronage of Maurepas gave him the cabinet the printing privilege and the institutional platform that the Histoire naturelle required. From 1739 onward his year was strictly bisected: October to April in Paris among the specimens May to September at Montbard where the great house the gardens the ducal tower and from 1768 an industrial-scale ironworks furnished both the writing room and the experimental laboratory. The Montbard forge is the experimental backbone of Buffon's late geological writing. From 1765 onward he conducted a sustained programme of cooling experiments in which iron and stone spheres of graduated diameter were heated to incandescence and the time required for them to cool to ambient temperature was measured under controlled conditions. Extrapolating from sphere to planet on the assumption that the earth had begun as a molten body progressively congealed Buffon arrived at the published 75000-year estimate of the Époques de la Nature and at the manuscript figure three million years that he allowed his students to read but did not put into print. The forge was simultaneously a working blast-furnace producing pig-iron for the Burgundian armaments trade - the revenue from which subsidised the publication and freed Buffon from dependence on royal subvention. The orangery at Montbard housed parallel experiments on plant respiration and the germination of seeds; the great walled garden was a controlled environment for testing the hardiness of imported species against Burgundian winters. The whole estate in effect was an early instance of the gentleman-natural-philosopher's establishment as instrument - comparable in scale to Tycho's Uraniborg to Boyle's Stalbridge or to Darwin's later Down House. The Histoire naturelle is the published face of this experimental enterprise. The literary reception of Buffon was nearly as consequential as the scientific. His 1753 reception address to the Académie française the Discours sur le style "le style est l'homme même" became one of the most quoted statements of French neoclassical aesthetics and reframed the Histoire naturelle as a literary as well as a scientific monument. The set-piece elegies on the horse the lion the swan the orangutan and the dog were detached from the parent volumes and circulated as morceaux choisis; they remained obligatory recitation pieces in the French lycée through the Third Republic and were anthologised by Sainte-Beuve in the Causeries du lundi in 1855 as the model of mid-eighteenth-century French prose. Diderot read and annotated the early volumes for the Encyclopédie; Rousseau with whom Buffon's relations were polite but distant took the geographic-determinist passages as silent corroboration of his own anthropology; Voltaire who shared Buffon's anti-Sorbonne instinct but resented his court success kept up a guarded correspondence. The Smellie translation Edinburgh 1780-1785 and Goldsmith's History of the Earth and Animated Nature London 1774 an avowed abridgment carried the work into the English-speaking world where Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia 1794-96 silently absorbed Buffon's transformist hints into its own evolutionary speculation. The afterlife of Buffon's argument runs straight through nineteenth-century evolutionary thought. Cuvier lecturing at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle from 1795 treated the Histoire naturelle as the institutional charter of his own comparative-anatomical programme even while disputing its transformism. Lamarck who had reorganised the botanical galleries under Buffon in 1788 developed his 1809 Philosophie zoologique by extending Buffon's observations of climate-driven variability into a fully transformist mechanism. Lyell's Principles of Geology 1830-33 acknowledged in its preface that the eighteenth-century revolution in geological time had been Buffon's and Darwin in the historical sketch added to the third edition of the Origin 1861 placed Buffon at the head of the line of pre-evolutionary speculators - with the politically careful note that the Histoire naturelle had at one point been condemned by the Sorbonne. Thomas Jefferson who owned the work at Monticello Sowerby 1024 for volumes 1-31 and 637 for the Suppléments and corresponded with Buffon about American zoology was so stung by Buffon's thesis that New World fauna were degenerate forms of Old World types that he had the bones of an American moose shipped across the Atlantic to Paris as evidence in rebuttal. The German reception travelled along a separate but parallel channel: Goethe read the Époques in 1781 and absorbed its rhetoric of geological depth into his own morphological writing and Alexander von Humboldt whose Kosmos 1845-1862 is the nineteenth-century lineal descendant of the encyclopaedic ambition of the Histoire naturelle repeatedly cited Buffon as the founder of the genre to which he conceived his own work as belonging. The scholarly modern editions - the Imprimerie Nationale Pléiade selection of 1954 under the editorship of Jean Piveteau the 1971 Bibliothek Suhrkamp German selection edited by Jacques Roger and Roger's own 1989 Fayard biography translated as Buffon: A Life in Natural History Cornell 1997 - are all built on direct consultation of the original quarto edition of which complete uniformly-bound contemporary sets remain the necessary collation copy. The Centre international d'étude du XVIIIe siècle's Buffon: Histoire naturelle générale et particulière bibliography Pierre Lecouturier and Roger Hahn 1972 supplemented by Jeff Loveland and others through the 2010s confirms that no two contemporary sets are identical in title-page state advertisement leaves or the order of the prefatory matter and treats the uniformly-bound quarto with a complete Minéraux atlas as the bibliographical reference state for the work. References: Printing and the Mind of Man 198 Carter and Muir identify Buffon's priority in presenting the natural world as a single unified field - Dibner Heralds of Science 193 described as the most celebrated treatise on animals ever produced - Norman 369-370 - Evans First Editions of Scientific Books Berkeley exhibition 1934 no. 97 - Nissen ZBI 672 - Wellcome II 267 - Brunet I 1376 Brunet recommends that collectors always seek out this first quarto edition for the beauty of its engravings - Sowerby Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson 1024 and 637. 45 volumes 4to 242 × 188 mm comprising the 44 text volumes and the separately-issued atlas to the Minéraux. 1275 engraved plates including the portrait frontispiece of Buffon and twelve folding maps mostly by Jacques de Sève père and his son Jacques-Eustache de Sève with further designs by Buvée l'Amériquain Jean-Baptiste Oudry and Nicolas Baron engraved by Baquoy Basan Moitte and Tardieu. Uniform contemporary French mottled calf the spines gilt in compartments with small lozenge tools and two black morocco lettering-pieces triple gilt fillet on the covers marbled edges and matching Spanish-shell marbled endpapers; narrow blue silk ribbon markers at the heads of the spines. A very fine set. The Oiseaux volumes are numbered I-IX on their title-pages and continuously as tomes XVI-XXIV on their half-titles. . De l'Imprimerie Royale [later Imprimerie des Bâtimens du Roi; Hôtel de Thou; Plassan] unknown
