The French botanist Alfred Moquin-Tandon (1804-1863), professor of zoology and botany at Marseille and Toulouse, published his present history of French molluscs in 1855, the fruit of nearly twenty years of labour. It is recognised as one of the finest studies of molluscs from the mid-nineteenth century.
The two main volumes present all known families and species of molluscs in France at the time of writing. Moquin-Tandon provides a detailed description of each sort, their shapes, physical attributes and habitats. The atlas volume depicts shells and living animals as well as their radulae, genitals, sensory organs and nervous systems. Each plate depicts one type of mollusc and its various subspecies. Alfred Moquin-Tandons Histoire naturelle des mollusques ... de France set the standard for the description as well as the depiction of molluscs due to his taxonomic accuracy and the level of detail in the plates. The 54 uncoloured plates were printed by Rémond using his fine and detailed printing technology.
With a few leaves in the atlas volume partly separated from the spine, but with no damage to the plates and the whole in very good condition. Caprotti II, p. 41 [204]; Nissen, ZBI 2880.