Natural history for children, antiquarian book, Leipzig, from 1827, with 623 pages, plus 13 good copperplate engravings, half leather binding on marble paper. Overall, the work is very broad and, in my opinion, surprisingly demanding for children. Verbatim quote from the author's preface: "Wish you luck, that at least for you the times are over when young people were entertained with fantasies that left such a damaging impression on the whole of life!" (still a current statement today). Some more text quotations: "According to Humboldt, some amphibians in hot countries dry up with the mud and wake up again in the rainy season" ... "Turtles can, it is believed, fast for a whole year" ... "We now know at least 33 genera, some of them are flaunting beautiful colors and are made into cans and other beautiful art things under the name tortoiseshell, such as shields, quivers, troughs and all sorts of other things" ... "Boy and Old people usually have tasty and healthy meat, which is a real blessing for sailors" ... "They expect a thousand persecutions from people and animals." Four species are then described in more detail with original texts, namely the giant tortoise, loggerhead tortoise, European tortoise and the geometric tortoise (all also with Latin names). [hint: this is an automatic translation from German]   |   Category: Children's book   |   Material: Papier   |   Country of origin: Bavaria, Germany   |   Artist: Autor: C. Ph. Funke | Similar pieces