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(ORNITHOLOGY). LEWIN, WILLIAM. The Birds of Great Britain. Systematically Arranged, Accurately Engraved and Painted from Nature. With Descriptions including the Natural History of Each Bird. Eight volumes bound in four. Text in English and French with title-pages in both languages in each volume. 336 hand-colored engraved plates, comprising frontispiece and 277 plates of birds and 58 plates of eggs. Foxed in places, some offsetting. Uniform contemporary half-calf over patterned boards, scuffed, two upper covers detached. Lg. 4to. Mullens & Swan p. 351; Nissen IVB 562; Fine Bird Books, p. 119; Wood, p. 435. London, for J. Johnson, 1795-1801. The first edition of this work was limited to 60 (or 66) copies and entirely illustrated by original watercolors. This second edition was produced using copper plates onto which Lewin directly etched the images - not copies from the first edition work, but entirely new and very much more detailed. Even as he was still painting birds for his first edition, Lewin was preparing the etched copper plates for the second, several of the plates being dated as early as 1793. Lewin died suddenly in 1795 having completed only the first 103 copper-plates himself. His sons completed the remaining plates (104-336) following their father’s death. Plates by the sons started to appear halfway through volume IV, which was first issued in 1797. "Lewin was the best zoological painter and one of the most practical naturalists of his day" (Swanson).