As is typical of a three-quarter leather binding, the leather dries out. First the spine falls off and the boards soon follow. The leather on the corners of the boards degrades and the structure delaminates and breaks off.

With no support, the stitching holding the pages together breaks apart and damage is caused to the now loose sheets. The Anning page is completely detached and is damaged along one edge.

This volume contains the only published scientific paper written by the Dorset palaeontologist Mary Anning (1799-1847). It is in the form of a letter written in response to the editor Edward Charlesworth’s request for information about his paper “On the Fossil Remains of a Species of Hybodus, from Lyme Regis”, which also appears in this particular volume of the Magazine of Natural History (1839).

Magazine of Natural History

In 1837, at the age of just 24, Charlesworth took over as proprietor and editor of the ‘Magazine of Natural History’, a journal which sought to exploit the rising popularity of science among the populace. As a gifted palaeontologist, he made numerous contributions to his own journal. However with his editorial hat on he would freely pass comments on external events or others’ work.

Charlesworth’s paper was a description of a fossil jaw of the shark Hybodus which had actually been found by Anning. She had sold it to the fossil collector Edmund Thomas Higgins (1817-1891), who Charlesworth mistakenly gave equal attribution to as discoverer. Of note is Charlesworth’s rather sneering reply, compared with the more respectful response given to Gideon Mantell, whose letter is on the same page.  

Charlesworth’s opinionated nature combined with a lack of tact and the means in which to freely express his views in print inevitably led to problems. Only four volumes of the journal were published, ending abruptly in 1840 when Charlesworth had to escape to Central America to avoid being sued for criminal libel by Thomas Hawkins (1810-1889). 

Conservation

The volume will need to be completely rebound as the boards and leather are too degraded to save. The original binding will need to be stripped back and the pages repaired and resewn. It will then be rebound in a similar early Victorian style binding. Cost of conservation: £400.

If you would like to sponsor the conservation of this item, please contact the Library team at library@geolsoc.org.uk.