A small selection of titles on Bees: The Honey-Bee, It's Nat...

Hammer

£120

A small selection of titles on Bees:
The Honey-Bee, It's Natural History, Habits and Anatomy and
Microscopical Beauties, James Samuelson, Pub. Van Voorst, 1860
First edition. 166 pp. 8 tinted plates including the frontispiece.
Original publisher's patterned cloth. Gilt title to front board '
Samuelson's Humble Creatures' in gilt to spine. The frontispiece is
loose else this is an excellent copy of this very scarce title. An old
extract from a bookseller's catalogue has been pasted to the front free
endpaper. Handstamp of George West to pastedown.
With;
Structure of the Bee, Shown in Model, Gresham Publishing Company.
No date, c 1900. Landscape octavo. 2pp with an illustration of bees
with lifting flaps to reveal internal organs. The explanatory key is on
the opposite page. Soft crease and uneven fading to covers. A rare
item.
With;
British Bees, An Introduction to the Study of the Natural History and
Economy of the Bees Indigenous to the British Isles. by W.E.
Shuckard, pub. Lovell Reeve, 1866 first ed. 371pp 16 coloured plates.
Publisher's purple cloth with gilt bee to front board. Faded to the
spine, with a short split at the top. A solid copy of this classic title.
With
Catalogue of British Hymenoptera in the British Museum second
edition Part I Andrenidae and Apidae.

Subtitle Catalogue of British Bees in the British Museum, by
Frederick Smith, New Issue. pub. Printed by order of the Trustees.
1891. Brown patterned cloth in good order, slight softening of cloth at
top of the spine. Gilt titles to spine and small paper label. 236pp. 11
uncoloured plates at the rear. A Vg copy.
(4)

More Information

The following lots of books represent the library of George West.
West's biographical details are hard to pin down, his date of birth
unknown, (probably around the 1880's) and his death sometime after
1945. He is known to have worked as an assistant and then lecturer in
Botany at the University of Dundee from 1906. At that time the
university was a constituent college of St Andrews University. West
seems to have remained there until around 1926. In his publication
'Practical Principles of Plain Photo Micrography' (1916) he describes
himself as a lecturer in Botany. Most of the books in the sale bear the
handstamp, 'George West' to the front pastedowns. Many volumes bear
extracts from booksellers' catalogues with prices of the titles,
suggesting that West liked to keep up with the current values of his
library.
The books represent a working library and many are also
annotated in pencil in his hand, cross-referencing other works and
adding his comments. To the front of the first volume of Walker's
Diptera (see lot no.) he has inserted his handwritten poem, 'To the
Future Owners of this book'.

Geordie has now turned up his toes
And gone aloft to seek repose
From various varmints nips and stings,
Especially those base mankind brings...

.....

...He trusts the child who gets this book
Will on the various notes just look
And feel that every pencil stroke
Helps on the game dear Walker wrote...

Although a botanist by profession, his main interest, judging by
his library appears to have been entomology and amongst the books
are some rare titles in that field many dating from the nineteenth

century, a golden age for the natural sciences. Many of the giants in
the field of Entomology are represented in the books and there are

good sets of Curtis, Donovan and Stephens with many exquisite, hand-
coloured illustrations. Geology was another of his interests, as well as

microscopy.
What little is known of George West is largely gleaned from a
publication from Hereford Museum published in 2007. West had
donated a large collection of mineralogical specimens to the Museum
in 1945. His connection with Hereford, however, appears to be
tenuous and the man remains something of an enigma.