[Americana] Michaux, F. Andrew, and Thomas Nuttall The North American Sylva; or, a Description of the Forest Trees of the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia...

Philadelphia: Wm. Rutter & Co., (1865)-1871. In five volumes (including two volumes of Thomas Nuttall's supplement, as issued: The North American Sylva...Not Described in the Work of F. Andrew Michaux...). Early edition. 8vo. Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece portrait of Michaux by H.B. Hall after the painting by Rembrandt Peale, and 277 hand-colored plates (comprising 156 hand-colored engraved plates after the Redoute brothers, Pancrace Bessa, et al., with tissue guards, in first three volumes; 121 hand-colored lithographic plates, with tissue guards, in fourth and fifth volumes). Publisher's deluxe full brown morocco, boards elaborately stamped in blind, spines lettered in gilt; all edges gilt; scattered light foxing to text and plates. Sabin 48695; Reese, Stamped with a National Character, 21

A handsome set of this classic work on American natural history. "Few American color plate books had such lasting popularity as this classic work on American trees, or as tangled a publication history...In 1856 a fire destroyed the premises of the publisher of the joint edition. The Michaux plates were saved, but the Nuttall stones were evidently lost, and the later joint editions used new stones" (Reese).