BINGLEY, [Rev] William. Useful Knowledge or a Familiar Account of the Useful Productions of Nature: Mineral, Vegetable and Animal which are chiefly employed for the use of man. Illustrated with numerous Figures, and intended as a work of both Instruction and Reference. London; Printed for Baldwin, Cradock & Joy. 1821.

8vo.; 3 volumes; strikingly bound in contemporary green roan-backed boards, flat spines ruled and lettered in gilt, with gilt centres, over marbled boards with gilt-ruled sides; pp. viii + 279; [iv] + 292; [iv] + 267, [i] + [8], publisher’s catalogue; each volume including an index to the rear; with engraved title-pages and a total of 16 wood-engraved plates, including a frontispiece to each volume; a very pretty, and complete, set; externally extremely crisp and clean with just light rubbing to boards; internally equally sound and attractive with foxing to plates and offsetting to text, but otherwise almost unmarked throughout; with the same neat contemporary inscription in a neat calligraphic hand to the pastedowns of each volume, “John Foster, the gift of E.M.C. St. John, 1823”.

Third edition, much improved, with a good part of the first volume rewritten and plates corrected and redrawn: first published in 1816.

Volume I investigates minerals, metals and deposits with sections on diamonds, marble, opal, tin, gold, amber, porcelain clay etc.; Volume II deals with Vegetable Productions including tea, coffee, indigo, rice, bamboo, tobacco etc.; Volume III looks at  animals, birds and sea creatures, including the American Bison, the Greenland Whale, the Llama, the Common Cat; the Elephant, the Dog; the Common Pheasant and the Oriental Pearl Muscle etc.