Victorian Natural History · Bible Studies · First Edition · Illustrated Publisher's Cloth
The Animals of Scripture — Harland Coultas’s Zoology of the Bible, First Edition, 1876
Harland Coultas · Zoology of the Bible · London, 1876 · First edition
Catalogue details
Description
A handsome original first edition of Harland Coultas’s illustrated Zoology of the Bible, issued in London in 1876. It belongs to the Victorian encounter between religious study and the natural sciences, when writers attempted to identify animals named in biblical passages through natural history, geography, comparative philology and contemporary zoological descriptions.
- Dimensions
- Measurements gladly provided on request
- Author
- Harland Coultas
- Title
- Zoology of the Bible
- Publication
- London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1876
- Edition
- First edition
- Binding
- Original pictorial cloth, gilt and black
- Illustrations
- Profusely illustrated
- Condition
- Please consult the photographs for condition. Additional photographs are available on request.
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Historical context & sources
When Scripture Became Natural History
The animals discussed range across mammals, birds and other groups. The illustrated opening photographed here concerns the hyena and the interpretation of biblical references to wild animals in Palestine. Such passages offer an illuminating primary source for how nineteenth-century authors read Scripture through the lens of the period’s scientific knowledge.
Harland Coultas and the Illustrated Text
Harland Coultas is described on the title page as a former lecturer on botany at Charing Cross Hospital and the author of other books on trees and animal life. His Zoology of the Bible was distributed by the Wesleyan Conference Office, which also sold the work from Paternoster Row.
A contemporary publisher’s catalogue advertises the book as containing 126 illustrations. The present photographs show the striking wood engraving entitled “The Hyaena” alongside the text on page 47. The number and presence of all illustrations in this particular copy have yet to be verified against the complete volume.
