For your consideration:      

First (Sole) Edition of the FirstU.S. Aquarium Manual: 
“A World in Miniature . . . Removed into Our Parlor”

Click the images for enlargements.

•  Sole edition of one of the two earliest published guides to aquarium-keeping in the United States, and likely the actual earliest; for while another appeared in the same year and priority has not been firmly established, at least one 1858 periodical claimed “nothing had been published in regard to the subject” before the present work (American Journal of Science & Arts, XXVI, 284).

Illustrated with10 full-page stipple-engraved plates done by J. Erxleben, this guidebook covers efficient tank construction, freshwater aquarium inhabitants readily obtainable in the wild (goldfish, sticklebacks, sunfish, minnows, crawfish) as well as likely marine candidates (crabs, anemones, gobies, blennies, pipefish), and the basic overall principles of balancing species (fish, plants, snails, etc.) so that the tank seldom needs to be cleaned or have its water changed. It should be noted that the author is not wholly reliable in his identifications of American vs. British natives — but then again, the fad of aquarium-keeping was brand-new at the time, very few people could lay claim to more than Edwards' two years of aquarium experience, and all previous published works on the subject had been thoroughly British.

Binding:  Publisher's textured olive-green cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title and publisher; front cover framed in blind around a gilt-stamped central medallion offering a decoratively lettered title accented with images of small swimming fish, shells, and seaweeds.

•  NSTC 2E5035.   Bound as above; extremities rubbed and spine slightly sunned with small area of discoloration around paper shelving label at head. Ex–social club library: shelving label as noted, call number on endpaper, rubber-stamp on endpapers and two pages (not title-page), no other markings. Back pastedown with small ticket of New York bookseller, partially effaced. A few leaves with very short tears from outer margins, not touching text; pages clean.  (29024)

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