Perry's Arcana

577 Pages·2009·30.92 MB·English

by  George Perry

PERRY’S
Arcana
\
PERRY’S
Arcana
A Facsimile Edition
With a Collation and Systematic Review
RichaRd E. PEtit
temple university press
philadelphia
Temple University Press
1601 North Broad Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122
www.temple.edu/tempress
Copyright © 2009 by The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
All rights reserved
Published 2009
Digital restoration by Paul Callomon
This work may be cited as Petit, R. E., 2009. Perry’s Arcana: a facsimile
edition with a collation and systematic review. The Academy of
Natural Sciences and Temple University Press, Philadelphia.
This book is printed on acid-free paper for greater strength and longevity.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perry, George, b. 1771.
[Arcana, or, The museum of natural history]
Perry’s Arcana. -- A facsimile ed. / with a collation and systematic
review by Richard E. Petit.
p. cm.
Originally published in monthy installments, under the title Arcana, or,
The museum of natural history. London : Printed by G. Smeeton for James
Stratford. 1810-1811.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4399-0195-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Natural history illustration. 2. Animals--Pictorial works. 3.
Plants--Pictorial works. 4. Perry, George, b.1771. 5. Natural history
illustrators--Great Britain. I. Petit, Richard E. II. Title. III. Title:
Arcana.
QH46.P48 1810a
590.22’2--dc22
2009023265
Printed in China
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
contEntS
Foreword by Paul Callomon vii
PERRY’S ArcAnA
collation and SYStEmatic REviEw
Introduction 3 • Date and Format 4 • Title Page—Introduction 5
• Dedication 5 • Covers 6 • Collation 11 • Price 17
• Rarity 17 • Plates, Artists, and Engravers 20
Watermarks 22 • Publisher, Printer, and “Index” 22
Sources 23 • Text 24 • Taxa 25
Acknowledgments 45
Literature Cited 49
PERRY’S ArcAnA
facSimilE Edition

Readers Guide to Perry’s Arcana 563
Index 565

foREwoRd
By Paul Callomon
G eorge Perry was a gentleman student of natural history in Regency England who
produced two of the finest illustrated works of his time. Apart from this, almost
nothing is known about him. He was born in 1771, and spent his early life in Shropshire
and Liverpool before moving to London in 1807. An architect and stonemason by pro-
fession, he also lectured and wrote about natural history with considerable energy and
enterprise. Between 1810 and 1811 he published the Arcana, a magazine of natural his-
tory, and in 1811 the Conchology, a large illustrated book on shells. Immediately thereaf-
ter, however, he returned to obscurity and no record can be found even of his death.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, London was the center of the
scientific world. From the frontiers of Britain’s growing empire came a ceaseless flow of
new animals and plants to delight and puzzle men of science, who formed clubs and
societies before which to present their findings. Many of the leading figures of the age
were “amateurs”, a term that in those days bore no negative connotation, and Perry was
in no way unusual. In the heart of the city, “menageries”—private zoos—were operated
for the education and entertainment of the public, stocked with live and preserved speci-
mens imported by dealers. Parts of these collections later found their way into the natu-
ral history museums of the Victorian era, and many of their specimens survive today.
The advent of this wealth of new creatures coincided with explosive growth in the
printing trade, and the result was a great bloom in scientific publication. There were
large, lavishly illustrated books for those who could afford them, but some works were
instead published in installments. This magazine format allowed readers to spread their
cost or to select only those parts that interested them and to bind them as they wished.
Complete sets of such works naturally tend to be scarcer nowadays than is the case with
[ vii ]
foREwoRd
single-volume books, and Perry’s Arcana is no exception. His work was furthermore
unjustly spurned by many naturalists of its day, for reasons at which one can only guess,
and many sets probably were later plundered for their fine figures. An exhaustive search,
detailed herein, has so far uncovered only thirteen complete sets worldwide.
The Arcana reflects the views and enthusiasms both of its author and his audience.
Descriptions of new and fascinating animals in often florid prose are presented alongside
travelers’ reports from the lands of their origin. The eclectic content neverthleless main-
tains a fine balance between scientfic examination and more general observation, and
the level of conjecture is no higher than in many more serious and elaborate works of the
time. In the spirit of its age, Biblical references and early evolutionary theory sit together
in amiable co-existence. Above all, the figures delight the eye with their imaginative ar-
rangements and assured draftsmanship, the majority having been sketched from actual
specimens. Many of the new scientific names Perry introduced in the Arcana remain
valid and all are listed here with their present-day treatments.
With the two hundredth anniversary of its publication fast approaching, the for-
tunate availability of a complete, disbound set of the Arcana has provided a wonderful
opportunity to bring Perry’s work back into the public eye. Digital scanning and clean-
ing have restored glowing life to the often dramatic figures, and Mr. Petit’s rigorous and
erudite analysis guarantee that this new facsimile will be of considerable importance to
natural historians in the twenty-first century.
Technical noTes
As Mr. Petit asserts, the typography in the Arcana is quite good. The general quality
of text printing, however, was not. For this facsimile, the text and plates were digi-
tally scanned and cleaned to remove foxing, stains and dirt. Pages that had been heav-
ily skewed during printing were straightened, and “shadowing” caused by ink leaching
between pages was removed. Naturally no attempt was made to correct the content,
though errors in spelling and grammar abound.
The colors of the plates were restored on the assumption that they were originally
printed on off-white lithograph stock. This would not have been as bright as modern
paper, and care has thus been taken not to overbrighten the colors. The sole botany il-
lustration in plate 2 seems to have a strong green cast, but this was apparently the artist’s
intent.
Finally, Perry re-issued two numbers of the Arcana in order to standardize the layout
so that each new part would start on a recto page. As new scientific names were intro-
duced in both numbers, however, it was decided to reproduce the original versions here.
[ viii ]
PERRY’S

Arcana
collation and
SYStEmatic REviEw