Heck’s 1851 Iconographic Encyclopaedia, first American Edition

Item Details

This six-volume classic work cannot be bought – not complete and not online, at least; not that we’ve been able to find.
The “Iconographic Encyclopaedia of Science, Literature, and Art. … Translated from the German, with additions, and edited by Spencer F. Baird, A.M., M.D., Professor of Natural Sciences in Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa.” Published 1851 in New York by Rudolph Garrigue, 2 Barclay St. (Astor House).
This is J. G. Heck’s landmark publication, with 500 steel plates containing more than 12,000 steel engravings of subjects from science, literature and art, systematically arranged. In four volumes. As far as we know, every page of content is here. The six volumes – two volumes of plates and four volumes containing the descriptions of every plate – are in great condition. A handful – we’ve counted four or five – of pages have tears or other “significant” condition issues (please see photos), but overall there’s just a bit of foxing and the plates and text are in amazing shape.
As evidenced by his signature, in ink, in each volume, this copy of the Iconographic Encyclopaedia once belonged to George B. Stone, a Fall River, Mass., native and Brown University graduate who was an early Minnesota educator (@ 1858-60) and later president of St. Louis’ Washington University. Each of the six volumes also contains the book plate of a later owner, a 1910 Harvard graduate named Alden Edson Borden, who died in May 1912 at home in Fall River. (This and other items came to us, more than a century later, from the Borden family estate.) We have provided numerous photos.
The entire text of these six volumes can be found at the Smithsonian, online at https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/iconographic-encyclopaedia-science-literature-and-artThe combined weight of the six volumes is nearly 30 pounds. We will charge actual shipping costs.