BUFFON, Georges Louis-Leclerc de. - Lot 21

BUFFON, Georges Louis-Leclerc de. The Ages of Nature. Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1780. 2 parts in one large 12mo volume, (4)-246 and (1)-264 pp., 8 plates, including two fold-outs. Contemporary marbled and polished havana calfskin, decorated ribbed spine, edges speckled with red (upper cap worn down, corners slightly rubbed, slight rubbing but interior remains fresh). Rare separate first edition. Buffon’s theory on the history of the Earth, originally published in Volume 5 of the Supplement to his *Natural History* in 1778. Includes 2 fold-out maps: Map of the Langres Mountain Range and Map of the Two Polar Regions, plus 6 plates of teeth, all engraved on copper in black; lamp-shade borders and headbands. The beautiful map of the poles, divided into two hemispheres, depicts, for the North, northern America with the St. Lawrence River to the east and a fragmentary coastal outline to the west; in the Southern Hemisphere, the extremities of the “Magellanic Lands,” “Diemen’s Land,” and “N[ew] Zealand,” as well as the routes of Captain Cook and other explorers. Contemporary library label with handwritten annotations. Ex libris on the first and last endpapers: “This book … Chantreau, born in 1795.” A fine copy in its original binding. Provenance: from the library of Pierre Séjourné. Pierre Séjourné (1930–1993), a Parisian bookseller and lover of bookbindings, a flutist, and an enthusiast of literature and classical music, frequented both the Parisian artistic and literary circles and the world of the Decorative Arts and their schools through his uncle, the architect and academician Albert Laprade. Also an author and actor, he devoted himself to writing and performing his own plays, which were staged primarily in the Paris region. Wellcome II, 268. Norman, 370.