Erpétologie Générale ou Histoire Naturelle Complète des Reptiles [General Herpetology or Complete Natural History of Reptiles] (6-Volume Set)

About this book

Language: French with English introduction (107 pp.)

A full-size facsimile reprint of the historically important work Erpétologie Générale originally published between 1834 to 1854 in 9 volumes plus an atlas of colour plates. The set weighs in at almost 7.5 kg. Please note that this reprint is limited to 400 copies only. As of December 2019, there are still many copies remaining.

Among the published works in herpetology over the last five centuries, only two can be said to cover all known species of amphibians and reptiles comprehensively and scientifically. One, in English, was by George A. Boulenger and based on the collections of the British Museum in London (9 volumes, 1882–1896). These books were reprinted in 1961–1966 and, despite their age, remain among the most frequently consulted references in herpetology.

The other, in French, was by Constant Duméril, Gabriel Bibron, and the senior author’s son, Auguste Duméril, and based on the collections of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris (9 volumes plus an atlas of colored plates, 1834–1854). This latter work, Erpétologie Générale, generally known as “D & B,” has never been reprinted, yet it remains of continuing value to a broad community of academic zoologists, museum and zoo curators, and conservationists, and especially to herpetologists working in developing countries. Erpétologie Générale is, in fact, more comprehensive than its English counterpart, for in addition to having more detailed descriptions of genera and species, it also covers the internal anatomy, physiology, and the associated literature.

This full-size facsimile of Erpétologie Générale (here reprinted in five volumes of text and one atlas of plates) is absolutely complete and carefully edited for clarity. The 120 finely executed plates are reprinted in both uncolored and colored states because the original coloring sometimes obscures details of scutellation. The text volumes, which total about 7,000 pages, and atlas of 120 plates are sturdily bound in library-grade cloth and printed on durable, acid-free paper. A new introduction by Roger Bour (Paris) is an in-depth review of the book (including exact publication dates) with new biographies of the three authors. A comprehensive index to the scientific names, missing in the original book, has been added.

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