FELIX EDWARD GUERIN-MENEVILLE

Dictionnaire pittoresque d'histoire naturelle et des phénomènes de la nature by Felix Edward Guerin-Meneville was an early encyclopedia of natural history published in 1839. Many editions had hand colored plates, including plates about human anatomy and ethnography.

  

Ethiopians, Mongolians

The title translates as
THE PICTURESQUE DICTIONARY OF NATURAL HISTORY AND THE PHENOMENA OF NATURE.
Containing The history of animals, plants, minerals, Meteors, Principal Physical Phenomena and Natural Curiosities
With details on employment productions of the three kingdoms
In The Uses of Life, The Arts and Crafts and factories.
PREPARED BY A SOCIETY OF NATURAL,
UNDER THE DIRECTION OF MR F.-E. GUERIN.

  

Caucasians, Ethiopians, Ethiopians

Engravings from the book are for sale on Ebay Click here to see them for sale on Ebay.

Phrenology, Anatomy

Phrenology

One of the volumes is viewable at Google Books.

Georges-Louis Le Clerc, Comte de Buffon

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was a naturalist, mathematician and biologist in the eighteenth century France. His work influenced generations of naturalists including Charles Darwin who credited Buffon with treating the idea of natural selection with a scientific spirit. As the University of California, Berkeley website about evolution points out, "It is not the average person who questions 200 years of dogma..."

The work he is remembered for is the Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière.

The plate reproduced here is from that work.

The history had in it everything known about the natural world to that date and included the observation that despite similar environments, different locations produced different species.

Histoire Naturelle on the web in English translation, but unfortunately without the plates.

Double page photographs of some of the volumes at the Kyoto University Library http://hdl.handle.net/2433/515.

Wikipedia biography.

You can search for a copy yourself at Abebooks.com.
Use the search terms "Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulièr".

Also see my other post: The Human Skeleton.

368 Animal Illustrations (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)

Barr's Buffon. Buffon's Natural History. Containing A Theory of the Earth, A General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, Etc. at Amazon.com.

Buffon: A Life in Natural History (Cornell History of Science Series)

From Natural History to the History of Nature: Readings from Buffon and His Critics