dramatic frontispiece by john martin

The rare first edition of this successful popular work on the Earth's deep history by the founder of dinosaur palaeontology Gideon Mantell, with the remarkable mezzotint frontispiece 'The Country of the Iguanodon' by Romantic painter John Martin, as well as illustrations by Mary Ann Mantell, who is credited with discovering the first Iguanodon tooth.

Educated as a physician, Gideon Mantell (1790-1852) made enormously important contributions to geology and palaeontology. 'His assiduous investigations of the strata and invertebrate fossils of eastern Sussex culminated in The Fossils of the South Downs (1822), his first book (of twelve), with lithography by his wife. Having by then explored the rich vertebrate deposits of Tilgate Forest, he announced in February 1825 the discovery of Iguanodon, one of the various kinds of dinosaurs (not yet so called) with which he was subsequently associated' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). His discovery of the second dinosaur to be identified, Hylaeosaurus, showed that dinosaurs were land animals, not sea-dwellers, as had been assumed.

For a time Mantell displayed his fossils in his private museum in Brighton, where the painter John Martin, already known for his fantastical compositions, 'was among the stream of famous and fashionable visitors'. Mantell recorded in his journal that Martin was 'deeply interested in the remains of the Iguanodon etc. I wish I could induce him to portray the country of the Iguanodon: no other pencil but his should attempt such a subject' (Rudwick, Scenes from Deep Time, p. 78). The resulting painting hung in Mantell's museum and was reproduced in mezzotint to serve as the frontispiece for the present book, which went through eight editions by the early 1860s.

First edition; 2 volumes, 8vo (16.5 x 9.5 cm); mezzotint frontispiece after John Martin to volume I, hand-coloured lithographic frontispiece and 5 plates to volume II, engraved half title to each volume, engravings throughout the text, frontispiece of volume I trimmed closely, repaired abrasion on the recto of the volume II frontispiece, contents tanned and a little brittle, some spotting and occasional pencilled notes; recent half calf with gilt roll, spines elaborately gilt in compartments marbled sides, endpapers, and edges, blanks and endpapers renewed, binders ticket of G.D. Davidson to each rear blank, a very good set; 689pp.