ABOUT THE PUBLICATION / EDITOR / ARTIST

Walter Lawry BULLER (1838-1906)

The first edition of Walter Lawry BULLER'S A History of the Birds of New Zealand was published in 1872-3 in an edition of 500 copies with only 36 hand coloured lithographic plates by J.G. Keulemans. The lithographic stones were then destroyed.

The highly valuable first edition plates were hand coloured by Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe's three daughters, Misses Dora Louise, Daisy Madeliner, and Sylvia Rosamund, with some copied from G.Edwards. Keuleman's background details were also coloured.

Sometimes no water colour original exists where Keulemans drew his design directly on the stone and then coloured the first print himself as a guide to the hand colourers of further copies.

John Keulemans was a Dutch painter and illustrator who became famous as an artist and illustrator in England in the late 19th Century. He did the illustrations for both the first and second editions of Sir Walter Lawry Buller's, A History of the Birds of New Zealand.

The demand for the first edition of Buller's Bird of New Zealand was such that Buller persuaded Keulemans to undertake a second edition which included details of many more species than the first and gives names, synonymies, detailed descriptions and elaborate accounts of the habits and distribution of the birds.