Cynographia britannia: : consisting of coloured engravings of various breeds of dogs; / drawn from the life, with observations on their properties and uses, by Sydenham Edwards; and coloured under his immediate inspection. ...
Sydenham Edwards (1768 - 1819)
Category
Books
Date
1800 - 1805
Materials
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 3069513
Summary
Sydenham Edwards, Cynographia Britannica: Consisting of Coloured Engravings of the Various Breeds of Dogs, London: printed by C. Whittingham for the author, 1800[-1805]. Binding: Twentieth-century half red morocco; marbled paper sides; recessed cords; gilt spine title: 'Cynographia Britannica - Edwards. 1800'; gilt edges; marbled endpapers.
Full description
Manuals such as ‘The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Heraldry’ (1486) included passages on the care of dogs, but the fist English book concerned with the exclusively was ‘De Canibus Britannicis’, by the physician and Cambridge college head John Caius. Originally complied for the inclusion in Conrad Gesner’s ‘Historia Animalium’ the work was published separately in 1570 and freely translated into English in 1576. Although Caius’s work was reprinted several times, no comparable work followed until the publication of Sydenham Edward’s Cynographia Britannica over two centuries later. Sydenham Edwards (1768-1819) was born in Usk, Monmouthshire, and brought up in Abergavenny. The son of a schoolmaster and church organist, he showed early artistic talent and in his teens was brought to London to work for the botanical writer and publisher William Curtis. His first signed work appeared in Curtis’s ‘Botanical Magazine’ in 1788 and he produced most of the plates for the journal until 1815, also contributing to Curtis’s ‘Flora Londinensis (1777-87) ad R.W. Dickson’s ‘A Complete Dictionary of Practical Gardening’ (1807). Although chiefly identified with botanical illustrations, Edwards also worked on animal subjects in such publications Abraham Rees’s revision of Chambers’s ‘Cyclopedia’. Nonetheless, his ‘Cynographia Britannica’ was something of a departure, and likely to appeal to Lord Fairhaven, who reportedly kept black Labradors. Not only does it consist of images of dogs rather than plants, but Edwards wrote the text and published the work himself. Six parts were published at irregular intervals between 1800 and 1805, each apparently containing illustrations of two breeds ‘drawn from the Life’ by Edwards ‘and coloured under his immediate inspection’. Despite the charm of the illustrations, the book does not appear to have been a success’ publication stopped after the sixth number, the text breaking off abruptly in the middle of the section on the mastiff, and very few copies survive. Text adapted from William Hale's entry in ‘Treasures from Lord Fairhaven’s Library at Anglesey Abbey’, National Trust, 2013, cat. 18, pp. 78-79.
Bibliographic description
8, [72] p., [12] leaves of plates : col. ill. ; 4to. Loosely inserted: typed slip with book dealer's description of this copy and typescript catalogue slip. Pencil note on front free endpaper verso about this copy. Provenance: Twentieth-century armorial bookplate large variant, signed Badeley 1930: Urban Huttleston Rogers Lord Fairhaven [i.e.: Urban Huttleston Broughton (1896-1966)]. Erased pencil inscription on verso of frontispiece (illegible). Binding: Twentieth-century half red morocco; marbled paper sides; recessed cords; gilt spine title: 'Cynographia Britannica - Edwards. 1800'; gilt edges; marbled endpapers.
Provenance
Acquired by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) and then bequeathed by him to the National Trust with the house and the rest of the contents in 1966.
Makers and roles
Sydenham Edwards (1768 - 1819), author Sydenham Edwards (1768 - 1819), illustrator
References
Mark Purcell, William Hale and David Person, Treasures from Lord Fairhaven’s Library at Anglesey Abbey, Swindon: National Trust; London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers, 2013., pp. 78-79