Conchology.- Kiener (L[ouis]-C[harles]) Spécies Général et Iconographie des Coquilles Vivantes, 11 vol., first edition, 903 engraved plates with fine hand-colouring including cancelled plate 20bis to vol.1, one plate trimmed with loss to imprint and captions, 16ff. of publisher's advertisement at end of vol. 11, occasional foxing, vol.1 title stained at gutter, vol.7 p.62 torn, facsimile of Sherborn's 'Notes on the dates of publication of the parts of Kiener's 'Species...' tipped-in onto vol.1 p.1, Richard I. Johnson ink-ownership stamp to free endpapers and title rectos, original upper wrapper tipped-in to vol.1, 20th-century half blue morocco, spines lettered in gilt, [Nissen ZBI 2183], 8vo, Paris, [1834]-80.

*** A fine copy of one of the most beautiful shell books ever made. Kiener made use of the famous Delessert collection and that of the Natural History Museum of Paris together the largest and most varied fund of conchological material on the continent. "He soon put it to good use; and in 1834 he published the first part of his 'Spécies...' This exquisitely illustrated iconography started before the Sowerbys and Reeve began to issue theirs appeared at intervals up to 1879 when eleven volumes had been completed. All devoted to the illustration of marine gastropods with the exception of the tenth volume which includes a monograph on the bivalve genus Thracia. The eleventh volume is the work of Paul Fischer. All the illustrations are by celebrated French engravers and artists of the day." (Dance. Hist. of Shell Collecting p.137).

Richard I. Johnson was Research Associate at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.