Handbuch der Naturgeschichte fur die Jugend und ihre Lehrer..

Berlin: Carl Friedrich Amelang, 1821. A beautiful work for the education of the young. The fine large coloured plates in the atlas depict mammals (including the kangaroo), birds, amphibians, fish, and insects, as well as botany and minerals. The images were drawn from nature by Georg Bretzing, Ludwig Meyer, Muller and Weber, and engraved by Bretzing, Guimpel, Meno Haas, Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer, Ludwig Meyer, Tissot and Wachsmann. This delightful assembly was the work of the reformist theologian Friedrich Philipp Wilmsen (1770-1831), a pastor in Berlin who was both friend and confessor to the great composer Felix Mendelssohn. Wilmsen was an enthusiastic writer of works for the young across a wide range of subjects, partly influenced by Swiss theologians including Johann Jakob Hesse who had begun a tradition of writing indigenous Bible stories for Swiss children characterised by a religious tolerance and teaching across all economic divides. The comprehensive texts cite references to Lichtenstein, Krug, and Blumenbach, amongst others.
Rare.

Bibliography: Nissen 436; not in Gumuchian. Three octavo text volumes and oblong quarto atlas; the text volumes with fine engraved titles, the atlas illustrated with 50 plates, 48 of them finely hand-coloured; original half mottled calf, spines gilt with ivory title-labels (texts) and original quarter shagreen over blind-stamped boards (atlas); a most attractive set, with some offsetting to the plates in the atlas.