Why it matters

Hervieux de Chanteloup's Nouveau traité des serins de Canarie, first published in Paris in 1709 and dedicated to Anne of Bavaria, Princesse de Condé, is generally described as the first monograph devoted to the canary, covering origins, breeding, cages, feeding, illnesses and cures. It is also an early example of a bird book printed with engraved music — tunes on the flageolet to be taught to the birds — and it was reprinted repeatedly through the eighteenth century, this 1745 Saugrain printing being one of those later editions. It’s essentially a handbook on breeding and keeping canaries, and it includes printed tunes for teaching the birds to sing. Owners played these melodies over and over on a serinette, a small hand-cranked bird organ, until the canary learned to sing them back.

Why we're looking

At US$57.88 this sits roughly US$340 below the one directly comparable copy we found — the same Paris/Saugrain 1745 edition, likewise complete with 4 plates including the folding one, offered Near Fine at US$399.97 by Librairie Poids Plume in Lausanne — and well under the US$220-290 range for earlier Prudhomme printings. The gap is clearly condition-driven rather than a mispricing, but a complete-with-plates copy of an early canary monograph under $60 is worth a curator's look.

Watch out for

The seller is unusually frank about serious faults: the hinge is largely open, the head cap is gone and the tail cap worn away, and the folding plate — the one most likely to carry the cages/aviaries and engraved music that give this book its appeal — is described as badly damaged. Realistically this copy needs rebacking and possibly plate repair, so factor restoration cost into the $58 ask plus $17-22 shipping and customs. Ask for images of all four plates before buying, since the comparable 1745 copies describe their plate complement in differing terms (one as four plates including a folding one, another as one engraved cage plate plus music leaves and a folding engraving).