Buffon - Oeuvres Complètes - 1838-1839

BUFFON, THE LOST CONTINENTS AND THE GREAT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NATURE
Monumental collection of the complete works of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, a central figure of the European scientific Enlightenment, here offered in the Paris edition curated by M. A. Richard and published between 1838 and 1839. The work gathers in twenty volumes the immense encyclopedic project that attempted to describe the entire natural order: quadrupeds, birds, minerals, earth theory, physical geography, and cosmology interweave in a scientific narrative still imbued with philosophical wonder. The numerous engraved plates, some finely colored, the large folded maps and zoological illustrations convey the charm of a science that was still theatrical and visionary, suspended between empirical observation and universal imagination. The whole also preserves an elegant uniform binding that emphasizes the decorative and bibliographic character of the series.
MARKET VALUE
The complete nineteenth-century editions of Oeuvres de Buffon, especially in large, uniformly bound sets, continue to hold solid interest on the European antiquarian market. Complete 20-volume sets with plates, maps, and contemporaneous or homogeneous binding generally fetch between €1,200 and €1,500, with higher values for copies that are particularly fresh or richly illustrated. Collections devoted to zoology and earth theory are especially sought after by collectors of natural history, geography, and scientific iconography.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
20 volumes. Uniform half-leather binding of the period with marbled boards, smooth spines decorated in gold with title and numbering impressed in relief, signs of wear. Numerous engravings in black and white and in color, folded maps, portraits and scientific figures in and out of the text. Maps with browning and physiological foxing and some oxidation traces on the plates.
Volume I — Théorie de la Terre – Histoire naturelle de l’Homme — about VIII-462 pp. + maps, among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume II — Quadrupèdes I — about 435 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume III — Quadrupèdes II — about 559 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume IV — Singes – Additions aux quadrupèdes — about 349 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume V — Oiseaux I — about 333 pp. + map, among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume VI — Oiseaux II — about 380 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume VII — Oiseaux III — about 396 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume VIII — Oiseaux IV — about 420 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume IX — Reptiles – Serpents — about 410 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume X — Minéraux I — about 430 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume XI — Minéraux II — about 415 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume XII — Expériences sur les végétaux – Tables — about 400 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume XIII — Suppléments I — about 440 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume XIV — Suppléments II — about 430 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume XV — Mammifères découverts depuis Buffon — about 450 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume XVI — Mammifères et classification comparée — about 440 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume XVII — Oiseaux nouveaux I — about 460 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume XVIII — Oiseaux nouveaux II — about 445 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume XIX — Sciences naturelles – Progrès scientifiques — about 420 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
Volume XX — Tables générales et index — about 350 pp., among numbered pages, unnumbered pages and plates.
In old books, with a centuries-long history, some imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Oeuvres complètes de Buffon. 20 volumi.
Paris, P. Pourrat Frères, Éditeurs, 1838-1839.
Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Buffon was the great narrator of nature before the Darwinian revolution. His Histoire Naturelle, begun in the eighteenth century, represented the most ambitious attempt to describe the living and mineral world through a synthesis of observation, natural philosophy, and cosmological reflection. In these works the Earth no longer appears as a mere static backdrop to divine creation, but as an ancient, dynamic organism shaped by time and geological transformations. The famous theories on the age of the planet, climatic variations, and species migrations anticipate some of the fundamental themes of modern science. The illustration program plays an essential role: domesticated and exotic animals, scientific diagrams, architectural sections of furnaces and laboratories, physical and geographical maps of the ancient continent testify to the effort to transform natural knowledge into a total visual experience. The presence of large folded maps and color zoological plates makes this collection especially significant from an iconographic standpoint.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1707-1788), was a French naturalist, mathematician, and writer. Director of the Jardin du Roi in Paris, he transformed natural history into a modern discipline capable of marrying scientific observation, literary style, and encyclopedic ambition. His Histoire Naturelle deeply influenced European culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, anticipating questions later central to evolutionism and historical geology.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
Buffon’s works enjoyed extraordinary diffusion since the eighteenth century, with numerous reprints, translations, and illustrated reissues. This Pourrat Frères edition of 1838-1839 belongs to Buffon’s long publishing history in the nineteenth century, a period when Buffon was already regarded as a classic of European science. Complete multi-volume sets, uniformly bound and supplied with plates, were intended for both middle-class libraries and scholars of natural sciences and geography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Nissen, Zoologische Buchillustration, entries relating to Buffon’s nineteenth-century editions.
Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, I, entries relating to Buffon.
Graesse, Trésor de livres rares et précieux, entry “Buffon.”
WorldCat, censuses of the Paris edition, Pourrat Frères, 1838-1839.
Catalogue général BnF, notices relating to the Oeuvres complètes de Buffon.
DSB – Dictionary of Scientific Biography, entry “Buffon.”
Treccani, entry “Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc.”
Stafleu & Cowan, Taxonomic Literature, references to Buffon’s editions.
Studies on the nineteenth-century reception of the Histoire Naturelle and of French zoological illustration.