Color Standards and Color Nomenclature

Washington, D.C.: Published by the author, 1912. Second Revised and Expanded Edition. Very good+ in its original dark green cloth covered boards with gilt text on the spine and gilt text on the front board which shows faint rubbing. An octavo of 8 3/4 by 5 1/2 inches with light wear and rubbing on the spine ends. Both hinges have been professionally reinforced with Japanese tissue. There is the name of a prior owner in pencil with the date of "1912" on the first free end page. As so often seen, three yellow color swatches on Plate IV and four on Plate V have been partially soiled; All the rest of the swatches throughout this copy are intact and without damage. Unlike many of the copies of this title that we have seen the boards are not bowed inward due to the swelling of the contents. Without a dust jacket, probably as issued. 44 pages of text followed by 53 plates of color swatches containing 1,115 named colors. Each plate is protected by a tissue guard. The errata slip which explains plates XXII and XXIV is present in this copy. Twenty years in the making, this book represents a seminal achievement in the advancement of color identification for use in ornithology and botany. Ridgway (1850-1929) was a botanist and an ornithologist, a founder of the American Ornithologists' Union and curator of birds in the United States Museum (Smithsonian) from 1880 to 1915. This edition greatly expands and corrects the first edition of the title which was released in 1886. Hand stenciling of the plates for the first edition lead to "considerable variation in different copies of the book." (p. 13) This volume is a very scarce and an important work in the areas of ornithology, botany and color theory. This is the original publication with all of the carefully created color swatches which can not be accurately digitized in the recently printed, on demand versions, which are so prevalent. (Inventory #: TB33420)