Description
First edition of Anatomy Descriptive and Surgical by Dr. Henry Gray.
Thick octavo, xxxii, 750pp [2pp ads]. Publisher’s original brown pebbled cloth, borders stamped in blind on covers, title stamped in gilt on spine. Brown endpapers. Spine ends bumped and rubbed, light wear to board edges and joints, bottom board edges lightly bumped. Solid binding, soiling to endpapers with mild toning to text pages. Occasional finger marks and a few short tears in the margins, to be expected with a popular reference work of this type. Ink/pencil notations on pages 474, 475 and 750 and limited coloring to illustrations on pages 333 and 337. Verso of half-title reinforced with tape along the gutter. Complete with 363 wood engravings and contains page 369 mispaginated 367.
Housed in a custom red half morocco clamshell case with gilt lettered spine labels. (Garrison-Morton 418) A very nice example of this landmark work on human anatomy.
In writing Anatomy Descriptive and Surgical, Dr. Henry Gray wanted to provide both medical students and surgeons with a useful and affordable textbook on human anatomy. Gray worked on the book with fellow anatomist, Henry Vandyke Carter, performing dissections to which Gray produced the descriptive text and Carter the illustrations. A groundbreaking work in its field, the first edition of Anatomy Descriptive and Surgical was published in London in 1858 with a print run of 2,000 copies. The book’s quarto size, well-organized format, clear text and detailed illustrations made it extremely successful. While revised multiple times over the years, Gray’s Anatomy, as it is popularly known today, still remains a standard medical reference work.
