A large folio volume with 187 engraved plates considered the first modern encyclopedia on fish, this was largely the work of John Ray, prepared and expanded from Willougby's notes, more than a decade after his death. The work was published by the Royal Society at considerable expense; the Society's President, Samuel Pepys, personally underwrote 79 of the engraved plates, and other members sponsored the remaining plates. Despite its importance and sumptuous production, the work was slow to sell, and the Society, still owning a large number of copies 50 years after publication, authorized a re-issue of the original sheets with a cancel title in 1743..