My Birds in Freedom and Captivity
xiv, 254pp, tissue-guarded frontispiece and 21 further tissue-guarded, full page photogravures, and line drawings for chapter headings. Quarter bound in green cloth over pale blue cloth with gilt decorations and letterings, bevelled edges (boards worn all over, a little rubbed at edges, rounded at corners and fraying spine ends, mildly soiled). Deckled page edges and endpapers. There is a previous owner's stamp on the half-title, some faint occasional spotting, two pages have had the corner turned in, else internally neat, clean and fresh. Square and firmly bound. A personal record and homage to birds, designed to engage those who would perhaps not read a scientific treatise on ornithology, with the love and appreciation of bird life, with chapters on Birds of the House and Garden, Wild and Tame Hoopoes, Blue Thrushes, Nightingales, The Indian Shama, Sea and Shore Birds, Parrots and Parakeets, Cruelty to Birds, Storks and Cranes etc. The frontispiece shows Chekers Court in Buckinghamshire, then the family home of the author but now better known as Chequers, the country home of the British Prime Minister. A beautiful work with a very personal feel.