Why it matters

Barrington's Miscellanies gathers his Royal Society papers, including the celebrated eyewitness account of the eight-year-old Mozart examined in London, his tracts arguing the North Pole could be reached by sea, and his English translation of the Maurelle journal of the 1775 Spanish voyage up the Northwest Coast. Barrington was also Gilbert White's principal correspondent, and White's letters to him make up a large part of The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789).

Why we're looking

At US$699 this sits below every complete first edition we could find on the open market — roughly $175 under the cheapest comp, an ex-library rebound Good copy at US$875, and about $295 under Peter Harrington's copy at US$995.32, which carries broadly similar faults (a small repair to the title gutter and to a few maps). The spread above that runs from roughly US$1,300 to US$3,250, so the condition problems here are the question, not the pricing.

Watch out for

The seller discloses real restoration — a repaired title page, tissue repairs to gutters and a newer leather spine — and calls the book complete without itemising the plates, so ask for a plate-by-plate check, especially the Mozart portrait, which is the single most-often-missing leaf (one copy we found at US$550 lacks it outright). The "preface bound between pp. 470 and 471" may not be a binding error at all: two other dealers' collations of this edition show an asterisked *471–*477 preface sequence falling at exactly that point, so it is worth confirming against the printer's directions leaf rather than assuming misbinding. The reversed maps are a cosmetic matter, but shipping from South Africa adds cost and customs exposure on top of the ask.