COLUMBIA -- Susan Gibbes Robinson, a leading Columbia educator and philanthropist, has given a rare, first edition of Mark Catesby's 18th-century "The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands" to the University of South Carolina Libraries.

The two massive, leather-bound volumes, published in London in 1731 and 1743, contain the works of the British naturalist during his four-year odyssey through the wilds of South Carolina. The volumes boast 220 hand-colored, copper-plate engraved illustrations of flora and fauna on the right-hand pages, with descriptions in English and French in parallel columns on the facing pages.

"Catesby preceded Audubon by about 100 years. And there are only, roughly, in the world 70 copies," said Tom McNally, dean of libraries. "Many have been destroyed, as people have broken up the volumes and sold the pages individually. This puts University of South Carolina Libraries in rare company with institutions such as the Smithsonian and other elite libraries and museums."

The Gibbes-Robinson Catesby is the only first edition "Natural History" in a South Carolina library. At the university, it joins later Catesby editions, as well as some of the nation's finest holdings in natural history, including the complete original double-elephant folio set of John James Audubon's "Birds of America" and a first edition "American Ornithology" by Alexander Wilson.

The volumes will be exhibited at the Thomas Cooper Library this summer.

Scholars say Catesby is remarkable for myriad reasons.

"Only informal natural history accounts existed before Catesby," said Dr. Patrick Scott, director of special collections at Thomas Cooper Library. "Catesby provided the first full-scale natural-history study for any area of the United States. It was the most impressive, most substantial study of its kind -- particularly for the birds of the United States -- for nearly 100 years."

The "Natural History" volumes provide one of the earliest accounts of natural life in the Carolinas. They also provide a record of species now extinct, including the ivory-billed woodpecker and the Carolina Parakeet, the last known survivor having died in 1912 in a Cincinnati zoo. The illustrations range from birds in the first volume to mammals, fish, plants and reptiles in the second volume.

Catesby's approach was landmark in the illustration of natural history, as he was the first naturalist to depict birds in their natural habitat. Today, Catesby's revolutionary approach to illustration is more commonly associated with Audubon, although many scholars are quick to credit Catesby for his high level of detail and quality.

"Earlier illustrations were often woodcuts, which were stilted," Scott said. "They were always done from dead specimens, posed and not very realistic. Catesby differs in the level of detail, the quality of the coloring -- he mixed his own colors -- and the size."

McNally said Robinson's gift completes the university's Catesby holdings.

"Scholars will be able to see the progression of the first, second and third editions. Each edition is unique because of the way in which the Catesbys were assembled," he said.

Robinson said her father, the late Dr. J. Heyward Gibbes, bought the two-volume set in the early 1920s from Gittman's Bookshop on Main Street in Columbia. As a young girl, she loved looking at the books, getting lost in their beauty and in her thoughts of what Catesby's travels would have been like. Illustrations of the red belly'd woodpecker, the American partridge and the attamusco lily were among her favorites. She didn't realize the treasure her family possessed until she was 15 years old.

"I was in the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, and there was an open book on display. It was familiar; it was Catesby," Robinson said at a recent university library reception held in her honor. "I asked the guide to turn to the front page so that I could look at the numbers. When I returned home, I looked at our books' numbers. Williamsburg's book was a second edition; ours was a first edition. I knew then it was very rare."

At her request, the university will place the volumes on public display at least once a year, with a daily "turning of the pages." Once each day when the book is on exhibit, a university librarian will turn the pages of the two volumes so that visitors can enjoy the artistry of the different illustrations contained in Catesby's magnum opus.

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