A TALE OF THREE LHWYDS AND THE FAMILY OF EDWARD COPE

Three copies of Edward Lhwyd's Lithophylacii britannici iconographia 1699 were held in various Philadelphia research libraries in the 19th century. Today two are still in Philadelphia and one is in private hands. This paper examines these three copies with regard to how they came to be in Philadelphia and which of them might have been studied by E. D. Cope. It examines the connections between Cope and his family and the libraries of the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Library Company of Philadelphia.