For over 150 years, the Palaeontographical Society has been publishing monographs on a wide range of Phanerozoic fossil groups from the UK. Several of these monographs are of utmost significance for workers on Cenozoic molluscs, as they described and illustrated key assemblages, with numerous new taxa and of importance far beyond the UK. Amongst these, A Monograph of the Crag Mollusca was originally published in three volumes and three supplements between 1848 and 1882, and A Monograph of the Eocene Mollusca of England by Frederic E. Edwards, continued by Searles V. Wood, appeared between 1849 and 1877. Both of these, of course, have been out of print for a long time and were only available in libraries or, at considerable prices, from antiquarians. It is thus an applaudable initative of Cambridge University Press, in close cooperation with the Palaeontographical Society, to produce reprints of these still highly important monographs, and again make them easily available to professional and non-professional palaeontologists working on these popular mollusc groups. The Monograph of the Crag Mollusca is reprinted in four volumes (1, univalves; 2, bivalves; 3, first supplement; 4, second and third supplements); a folding map in the first supplement, too large to be reproduced in this reprint, can be downloaded from the Internet. The Monograph of the Eocene Mollusca is republished in two volumes (1, Cephalopoda-univalves; 2, bivalves). All parts can also be purchased separately. Each part is paperback-bound in an attractive soft cover (A4 size), carrying an enlarged illustration chosen from one of the included plates. On the back cover of each volume, a short introductory text is printed. The same text, together with a short introduction to the Palaeontographical Society, is included on the first introductory page of each volume. The second pages contain a short informative text on the Cambridge University Press. The third page is an additional title page (not included in the original papers) with the Cambridge University Press logo, and on the fourth page is the Cambridge University Press colophon. In each case, the original texts are scanned carefully, pages are upright, neatly cleaned and well-positioned. Paper quality is acceptable for text pages, but in fact, it is too thin for the plates. As explanatory texts to the plates are printed on the back of a foregoing plate, they are annoyingly transparent. In the original issues, the plates were lithographically printed on heavier paper with no text on the back of the plates. In the reprints, the text pages are printed in 100% black and white, but for the plates, the backgrounds are slightly retained. All plates were originally lithographed as black and white drawings, and this method guarantees that no details were lost in scanning. In the various volumes, these backgrounds, however, are rather variable in shade and in several of the plates the illustrations are rather pale.
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Sep 3, 2015
Raju Vaishya + 3
Open Access
