IN THE SCARCE WILLIAM NICHOLSON DUSTWRAPPER.

BOULENGER, E. G. ~ The Naturalist at the Dining Table.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Duckworth, London: 1927.

8vo., bright blue publisher's cloth, lettered in gilt to spine; outer edges untrimmed; publisher's blindstamp to lower board; together in the vibrant pictorial dustwrapper by Nicholson featuring a suited man gazing upon a table laden with dishes; THE BOOK very good ++, a little rubbed and pushed at spine tips; Foyles sticker and neat price in biro to front paste-down; and outer edges of text block a little spotted, occasionally extending onto pages; THE WRAPPER very good, toned as is common, beginning to split along folds, but holding; chipped to edges and particularly at head of spine, with approximately 2.5cm of loss leading to closed tears and affecting the title lettering; still an excellent example, seldom found at all and here completely unrestored. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. FIRST UK EDITION in the rare dustwrapper. The British zoologist Edward George Boulenger became a curator at the reptile house in London Zoo in 1911, and after serving in the First World War he later became the director of the newly opened seawater and freshwater aquarium of the Zoological Society of London. A frequent traveler and linguist, he often made trips to Europe in order to acquire new specimens for the reptile house and aquarium. He also penned ten works on the subject of animals and fish during the course of his career, of which 'The Naturalist at the Dining Table' was his second. Published in 1927 while Boulenger was working at London Zoo, this was his sole culinary work, and is in many ways seen as a precursor to the 'Wild Food' movement which was established by authors such as Roger Phillips and Richard Mabey, in which foraging, preparing, and eating wild plants, fungi, and seaweeds is greatly encouraged. Here, the author's own account is well informed by his intimate knowledge of the habits and physiology of animals as well as the best cooking methods and resulting taste. Extremely scarce thus, notable in particular for the Nicholson dustwrapper, which sees the author at the head of the table together with a feast which includes - as the book itself does - a hedgehog, snake, and various forms of lizard among traditional fare.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good ++
JACKET: Very Good