The Birds of South Africa (Signed, Deluxe Edition) by Austin Roberts

Author: Roberts, Austin
Illustrator: Lighton, Norman C.K.
Title: The Birds of South Africa (Deluxe Edition)
Publisher: The Central News Agency & H.F. & G. Witherby for The Trustees of the South African Bird Book Fund
Date: 1940
Place: Johannesburg & London
Dimensions: 8vo, 23cm x 17cm

xxxii+463pp
1st edition, signed, deluxe.

Signed, deluxe edition, bound in half red morocco over cream boards. 5 Raised bands to spine, gilt and black rules, titles stamped in gilt. Marbled endpapers. Top edge gilt, tail edge untrimmed.

56 Full colour plates including frontispiece, versos variably foxed. Unopened leaves at pp13-16, pp109-112, pp221 with small chip, lower 3cm unopened, pp297-300. Light foxing to boards and terminal blanks.

Hand numbered (31) presentation slip loosely inserted. Limited to 125 copies, of which this is number 31, presented to Dennis Dereham, Esq and signed by Roberts, illustrator Lighton and Secretary and Trustee of the South African Bird Book Fund, John Voelcker to the limitation page.

Austin Roberts was a self taught ornithologist and mammalogist, whose extensive field work culminated in the publication of The Birds of South Africa, the first comprehensive work of its kind and still the standard work on South African ornithology. It has been extensively reprinted and updated and is currently in its 7th edition.

A very good copy with some minor faults, scarce. Signed standard edition copies of Roberts' Birds are scarce as he died only 8 years after the work was published.