{"title":"The Art of Classification","description":"\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eNatural History from the Eighteenth Century\u003cbr\u003e to the Twenty-First\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003ca style=\"display: inline-block; padding: 0.75rem 2rem; border: 1px solid currentColor; letter-spacing: 0.08em; text-decoration: none; font-size: 0.875rem; text-transform: uppercase;\" title=\"Sotheran's - The Art of Classification\" href=\"https:\/\/library.sotherans.co.uk\/catalogues\/sotheran-s-the-art-of-classification.pdf\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e Browse the Catalogue as a PDF\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAn exploration of changing ways we have understood and represented the natural world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAlongside pioneering works of botany, zoology, and conchology, this catalogue offers the works of amateur naturalists, learned societies, and women who made their mark as authors, patrons, collectors, and illustrators. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"hanham-frederick-editor-natural-illustrations-of-the-british-grasses","title":"HANHAM, Frederick ( editor ). Natural Illustrations of the British Grasses.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eWith 62 Original Botanical Specimens\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHANHAM, Frederick (\u003ci\u003eeditor\u003ci\u003e).\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e Natural Illustrations of the British Grasses. \u003ci\u003eBath: Binns and Goodwin.\u003c\/i\u003e 1846.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFolio. Original publisher’s plum velvet, upper board central green gilt morocco lettering-piece within gilt lozenge, with brass fastening clasp; pp. [2], xx (recte xxiv), 130, [2 (publisher’s advertisements)], with half-title and 62 leaves of mounted botanical specimens within printed decorative borders; rubbed and scuffed with loss to corners and spine ends, joints split but firm;  specimens occasionally loose or wanting with occasional offsetting; but generally a good copy; contemporary morocco presentation bookplate to front pastedown, ‘To Thomas France Esqr. Marley Hall. In testimony of the esteem and gratitude of a friend. 1848.’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of this striking example of Victorian botanical publishing, with 62 original specimens of British grasses mounted within the text, one of only 100 copies issued, this copy sumptuously bound in velvet.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn ingenious and highly unusual contribution to Victorian botanical publishing, \u003ci\u003eNatural Illustrations of the British Grasses\u003c\/i\u003e sought to replace the conventional engraved botanical plate with the plant itself. Frederick Hanham (1806–1877), of Bath, was a medical practitioner and amateur botanist, later publishing a botanical guide to the trees and shrubs of Bath’s Royal Victoria Park (1857). Here he makes the case for the superiority of the specimen over its representation, arguing in his preface that carefully preserved plants must be of greater interest to the botanist and lover of nature than engravings, since there are qualities which ‘the pencil can never show’. The accompanying text combines botanical description with discussion of the properties and uses of the grasses, and is interspersed with ‘instructive and appropriate extracts from the best authors’, including Boyle, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Mary Howitt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe production of the work was a feat of extraordinary labour. Hanham records that 62,000 plants were collected and prepared, with a further half as many apparently required to allow for unsuccessful specimens. The collecting involved extensive travel and was frequently carried out in bad weather; he characterises the undertaking as involving ‘no slight or ordinary anxiety and exertion’. For only 100 copies, each containing 62 specimens, this represents a remarkable quantity of plant material gathered, dried and mounted by hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe finished volume was consequently an expensive luxury production, advertised at £2 2s as a ‘splendid volume in small folio’ intended for the library of the connoisseur, the agriculturist and the drawing-room. Its unusual method of illustration, however, presented considerable practical difficulties. ‘[T]he plants were difficult to fix securely into the books, were often fragile, and prevented the book from closing properly even when they were guarded in’ (Wakeman, pp. 65–66).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe book belongs to a small but important tradition of nineteenth-century ‘specimen books’, in which the boundary between herbarium and printed volume was deliberately blurred. Hanham’s achievement is especially striking for the sheer scale of its production and for the decision to preserve the plants with their natural structure intact rather than reduce them to pictorial representations. \u003ci\u003eNatural Illustrations of the British Grasses\u003c\/i\u003e was available in blue moiré silk for £3, morocco for £3 12s, and velvet, as here, for £3 8s; the luxurious velvet binding is comparatively rare.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSee Wakeman, Victorian Book Illustration: The Technical Revolution (1973).\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2126340\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741403787641,"sku":"2126340","price":200.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2126340f.jpg?v=1790768526"},{"product_id":"couch-jonathan-a-history-of-the-fishes-of-the-british-islands","title":"COUCH, Jonathan. A History of the Fishes of the British Islands.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eThe Earliest Colour-Illustrated Work on British Fishes\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCOUCH, Jonathan.\u003c\/strong\u003e A History of the Fishes of the British Islands. \u003ci\u003eLondon: George Bell \u0026amp; Sons.\u003c\/i\u003e 1877–1878.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFour volumes, 8vo. Original publisher’s blue pebbled cloth, borders decorated in blind, gilt-stamped design of three fishes to upper boards, dark brown endpapers, top-edges untrimmed; vol. I: pp. vii, [1], 245, [1]; vol. II: pp. iv, 265, [1]; vol. III: pp. iv, 208; vol. IV: pp. iv, 439, [1]; with 252 hand-coloured, tissue-guarded copper-engraved plates by Benjamin Fawcett of Driffield, each volume with 8 pp. of advertisements tipped in to rear; minor loss to headcaps of vols. 1 and 4., discreetly reinforced with cloth,  extremities bumped, spines lightly sunned; lightly toned with occasional foxing; else very good; 1883 ink ownership inscription of A. Phipson to title-page of Vol. 1.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn early reissue of this ‘major contribution to ichthyology … the earliest work on British fishes to be illustrated in colour’ (\u003ci\u003eODNB\u003c\/i\u003e), with 252 hand-coloured engraved plates.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOriginally published between 1860 and 1865, \u003ci\u003eA History of the Fishes of the British Islands\u003c\/i\u003e was the principal work of Jonathan Couch (1789–1870), physician and naturalist of Polperro, Cornwall. Couch practised medicine in the village for some sixty years, whilst pursuing extensive research into the natural history of the surrounding coast. Local fishermen frequently supplied him with uncommon marine specimens, allowing him to make detailed observations of the fishes of the western English Channel. The plates here were engraved from watercolours made by Couch from freshly caught specimens, and their remarkable fidelity was such that they subsequently enabled later ichthyologists to identify several species which Couch and his contemporaries had themselves misidentified.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCouch was a prolific contributor to the scientific journals of his day and maintained a wide correspondence with naturalists in \u003ci\u003eBritain and Europe\u003c\/i\u003e. He had corresponded with Thomas Bewick concerning Bewick’s proposed, but never completed, work on British fishes, and assisted William Yarrell’s \u003ci\u003eHistory of British Fishes\u003c\/i\u003e (1836) by lending him coloured illustrations and notes. Although Couch’s particular strength lay in the fauna of the western English Channel, his correspondence with leading naturalists enabled him to incorporate information on less familiar species; his knowledge of the northern fauna and freshwater fishes was less extensive. The text is nevertheless notable for its numerous original observations on the natural history of sea fishes and for the close attention paid to their habits and habitats.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCouch also devoted considerable attention to fishes of economic importance, particularly the pilchard and mackerel, both central to the Cornish fishing industry. His investigations into these species reflected not only his scientific interests but also his concern for the fishing community upon which the local economy depended. The resulting work combines detailed field observation with pioneering colour illustration, providing an important record of the British ichthyological fauna and a landmark in the illustrated natural history of British fishes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFreeman, British Natural History Books 828.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125975\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741406802297,"sku":"2125975","price":1150.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125975h.jpg?v=1790768543"},{"product_id":"sowerby-george-brettingham-a-conchological-manual","title":"SOWERBY, George Brettingham. A Conchological Manual.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eIntergenerational Infighting over French Classification\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSOWERBY, George Brettingham.\u003c\/strong\u003e A Conchological Manual. \u003ci\u003eLondon: G.B. Sowerby.\u003c\/i\u003e 1839.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo. Original brown cloth, printed paper label to spine; pp. [2], v, [1 (blank)], [130, [2], 4 (advertisements), 24 lithographic plates including hand-coloured frontispiece, 2 folding tables, in-text illustrations; front hinge sometime repaired with tape, tape marks to front free endpaper, scattered spotting throughout; contemporary bookplate of Petworth Literary and Scientific Society to front pastedown, nineteenth-century manuscript purchase note of F.G. Morgan, 1870 gift inscription from Morgan to George ?Sanders; a very good copy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of this encyclopaedic work vindicating the malacologist George Perry.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the major work of George Brettingham Sowerby II (1812–1884). Part of the Sowerby dynasty of naturalists and illustrators, he was the son of the George Brettingham Sowerby, who had been so vociferous in his condemnation of George Perry’s \u003ci\u003eConchology\u003c\/i\u003e (1811) for its adoption of new French systems of classification (see Item 11). It is ironic, then, as well as a sign of British scientific progress, that G.B. Sowerby Junior’s work includes tables referring the reader to the conchological systems of not only Jean Baptiste Lamarck but also Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBegun when the author was only twenty, this alphabetical guide to shells from across the world was designed as a conchological introduction for serious naturalists and general readers alike. Valued for its clear illustrations, it was widely used and ran to several editions, each greatly enlarged. Even in this, its most concise version, the book covers 488 species.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eProvenance\u003c\/i\u003e: bookplate of Petworth Literary and Scientific Society to the front pastedown, with a manuscript note that it was purchased from the Society by F.G. Morgan. The front free endpaper is inscribed by Morgan to Mr George Sanders (?), dated September 26th, 1870, ‘on his visit to Petworth on the above date’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125974\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741409816953,"sku":"2125974","price":350.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125974b.jpg?v=1790768565"},{"product_id":"poe-edgar-allan-the-conchologist-s-first-book-or-a-system-of-testaceous-malacology-arranged-expressly-for-the-use-of-schools-in-which-the-animals-according-to-cuvier-are-given-with-the-shells-a-great-number-of-new-species-added-and-the-whole-br","title":"POE, Edgar Allan. The Conchologist’s First Book: or, A System of Testaceous Malacology, Arranged Expressly for the Use of Schools, in which the Animals, According to Cuvier, Are Given with the Shells, a Great Number of New Species Added, and the Whole Br…","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eEdgar Allan Poe on Seashells\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePOE, Edgar Allan.\u003c\/strong\u003e The Conchologist’s First Book: or, A System of Testaceous Malacology, Arranged Expressly for the Use of Schools, in which the Animals, According to Cuvier, Are Given with the Shells, a Great Number of New Species Added, and the Whole Brought up, as Accurately as Possible, to the Present Condition of the Science. \u003ci\u003ePhiladelphia: Published for the author by Haswell, Barrington and Haswell.\u003c\/i\u003e 1839.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo. Original brown roan-backed pictorial boards; pp. 156; 12 unnumbered leaves of lithographic plates; small losses to spine at head and foot, joints cracked but firm, boards faded, bumped at corners, ink ownership inscription ‘Wm. H. Turney 1860’ to front free endpaper, scattered spotting throughout; a very good copy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of Poe’s possibly plagiarised ‘greatest hit’, the first English translation of Cuvier’s introductory textbook on molluscs and shells.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePoe ended up editing this version, intended for schools, of Thomas Wyatt’s \u003ci\u003eManual of Conchology\u003c\/i\u003e (1838) out of financial necessity rather than conchological passion. He was paid $50 by the publisher for the right to put his name on the cover to encourage sales. However, Poe took the commission seriously, writing a preface and introduction, and altering Wyatt’s text. He also translated Wyatt’s quotations from Georges Cuvier from French into English and worked on the classifications of the animals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result was a very popular school textbook which sold out within two months. Of all of Poe’s works, it was the only one to merit second and third editions in his own lifetime. However, Poe attracted accusations of plagiarism from the \u003ci\u003ePhiladelphia Saturday Evening Post\u003c\/i\u003e in 1846, which affected his reputation and his professional relationship with Harper, Wyatt’s original publisher and the firm that had published Poe’s novel \u003ci\u003eThe Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket\u003c\/i\u003e (1838). His standing was further undermined when it emerged that Wyatt's original book was itself plagiarised from the British naturalist Thomas Brown’s \u003ci\u003eThe Conchologist’s Textbook\u003c\/i\u003e (1837). Poe seems to have been aware that Wyatt, himself no conchologist, had leaned heavily on Brown’s work, as pencilled notes in his own copy of this book show, but the acknowledgement never made it into print. Even the cover design appears to have been stolen, being virtually identical to that of E.A. Crouch’s \u003ci\u003eIntroduction to Lamarck’s Conchology\u003c\/i\u003e (1826). Poe’s rebuttal, laid out in a letter of February 1847 to George W. Eveleth, is unrepentant, and honest about publishing practices of the day: ‘I wrote it in conjunction with Professor Thomas Wyatt, and Professor McMultrie … my name being put to the work, as best known and most likely to aid its circulation. I wrote the Preface and Introduction, and translated from Cuvier, the accounts of the animals, etc. All School-books are necessarily made in a similar way.’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite all of this, Poe’s work has attracted some high-profile defenders. In his 1995 book \u003ci\u003eDinosaur In A Haystack\u003c\/i\u003e, Stephen Jay Gould described \u003ci\u003eThe Conchologist’s First Book\u003c\/i\u003e as ‘Poe’s greatest hit’ and praises Poe for the translation of Cuvier into English for the first time, his insistence on describing the soft body of each animal alongside its shell, and a ‘progressive, even innovative, arrangement of material’ that showed a modern scientific approach that raises the work beyond its sources.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eHeartman and Canny’s variant ‘b’ with uncoloured plates. Plate 3 in BAL’s state ‘A’ reading ‘Parts of Shells.’\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBAL 16131; Heartman \u0026amp; Canny, pp. 41–44; Norman 1720. See Gould, Dinosaur In A Haystack (1995); Ostrom, The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe (1966).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125973\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741416141177,"sku":"2125973","price":800.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125973b.jpg?v=1790768583"},{"product_id":"gosse-philip-henry-actinologia-britannica-a-history-of-the-british-sea-anemones-and-corals","title":"GOSSE, Philip Henry. Actinologia Britannica. A History of the British Sea-Anemones and Corals.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eGosse’s Pinnacle as Illustrator and Naturalist\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGOSSE, Philip Henry.\u003c\/strong\u003e Actinologia Britannica. A History of the British Sea-Anemones and Corals. \u003ci\u003eLondon: John Van Voorst.\u003c\/i\u003e 1860.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo. Original dark green cloth, title within gilt banner with a design of corals to spine and upper board; pp. xl, 362, [2 (advertisements)], 12 plates (of which 11 chromolithographs by William Dickes), numerous engravings in the text; small stain to upper board, internally extremely bright; a handsome copy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition, published three years after his disastrous anti-evolutionary \u003ci\u003eOmphalos\u003c\/i\u003e, of the first detailed investigation of British corals and sea-anemones.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the only edition in book form, although it had previously been issued in twelve parts that differ from the final version, mainly in the brevity of the descriptions. The keen reception of the parts issue, the first detailed survey of its subject – and, until at least the 1980s, the only work to illustrate the British corals – led to a large initial print run of 4,000 copies of the book. It proved to be a slow seller, but nonetheless it retained its reputation as Gosse’s most important work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough Freeman and Wertheimer complain that he did not ‘pay enough attention to the internal comparative anatomy of the sea-anemones’, rendering some of his classifications unsatisfactory, the book displays his talents for observation, description, and analysis without any hint of the religious dogma that crippled his attempts to engage in the evolutionary debate. It also shows him at the height of his powers as an illustrator; the plates are simultaneously meticulous, accurate and, partly due to the work of the printer Dickes, eerily beautiful. The production of the book was itself a ‘major advance in natural history book illustration intended for the mass market’ (\u003ci\u003eODNB\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eProvenance\u003c\/i\u003e: front pastedown with the bookplate of Sir Henry Wade Deacon, 1852–1932, Lancashire industrialist and educationalist, Pro-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 1930 to 1932. Wade Deacon High School in Widnes is named after him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFreeman and Wertheimer 108, binding variant a; Freeman 1390.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125971\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741420401017,"sku":"2125971","price":700.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125971.jpg?v=1790768592"},{"product_id":"gosse-philip-henry-creation-omphalos-an-attempt-to-untie-the-geological-knot","title":"GOSSE, Philip Henry. Creation (Omphalos). An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eBelly Buttons in the Garden of Eden\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGOSSE, Philip Henry.\u003c\/strong\u003e Creation (Omphalos). An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot. \u003ci\u003eLondon: John Van Voorst.\u003c\/i\u003e 1857.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo in 12s. Publisher’s green cloth, spine lettered in gilt; pp. xiv, 376, [4 (advertisements)]; 56 lithographic in-text illustrations; a little spotting to endpapers and title-page, partially uncut; a few scuffs to boards, spine bumped at head; internally very good; pencilled ownership inscription to title-page and note to front free endpaper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition, second issue of Gosse’s pre-Darwinian and anti-evolutionary account of creation, based around the question of whether Adam, having not been born of a woman, would have had a navel (the \u003ci\u003eomphalos\u003c\/i\u003e in question).\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGosse argues that Adam would indeed have been born with a navel, according to his theory of Prochronism. One of the most influential and skilled naturalists of his day, Gosse was also a devout member of the Plymouth Brethren and was profoundly disturbed by the new evolutionary theories that threatened his Christian view of the universe. His theory attempts to combine the chronology of Biblical creation with geological evidence suggesting that the Earth was far more than 6,000 years old. It states that the Earth had been created by God with fossils in its rocks and that Adam had been created with a navel because those forms are characteristics of those objects – ‘The Man would not have been a Man without a navel’ (p. 349). Hence, an impression of great antiquity was presented to those who did not see that ‘the Creator had before his mind a projection of the whole life-history of the globe […] He determines to call this idea into actual existence, not at the supposed commencing point, but at some stage or other of its course. It is clear, then, that at the selected stage it appears, exactly as it would have appeared at that moment of its history, if all the preceding eras of its history had been real’ (p. 351).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Church was outraged because Gosse seemed to be suggesting that God had set out deliberately to deceive mankind about the age of His creation; evolutionists derided the obvious \u003ci\u003enon sequiturs\u003c\/i\u003e presented by his theories. \u003ci\u003eOmphalos\u003c\/i\u003e, which Gosse considered his great work, grievously damaged his reputation and overshadowed his pioneering work as a naturalist. Charles Darwin, who was still nervously shielding his theory of natural selection aware of the furore it would cause, ‘was aware of Philip Henry Gosse’s \u003ci\u003eOmphalos\u003c\/i\u003e […] in which Gosse … [showed] the same ardent desire to reconcile faith and science that Gosse’s son Edmund would pity in Father and Son decades later, and that goaded [Charles] Kingsley into announcing that God would scarcely have written on the rocks ‘one enormous and superfluous lie’ (Browne, p. 22). Its value today, apart from its interest as a vigorously argued and entertaining work, is as a document of the febrile intellectual environment in which Darwin, his allies and his opponents found themselves operating. Gosse, in his sincere but woefully misguided attempt to fit new facts into old dogmas, embodies the cultural crisis that Darwin and Wallace would bring to a head the following year when they presented their joint paper on natural selection to the Linnean Society.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe book was initially published simply as \u003ci\u003eOmphalos\u003c\/i\u003e. Of the 4,000 copies printed, only 600 had sold by 1869 and it was making a loss when Gosse decided to change the title to something clearer to try to boost sales. The only difference between the two issues is the cancel title-page. The sales strategy did not work: ‘It seems undoubted that a considerable number were pulped, and the book today is far scarcer than some of his others which we know to have been printed in much smaller numbers’ (Freeman and Wertheimer).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBM(NH) II, p. 697; Freeman and Wertheimer 82, in a binding variant not noted – as a and b but with ILLUSTRATED in gilt added to spine. See Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (2002).\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125970\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741425381753,"sku":"2125970","price":500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125970d.jpg?v=1790768616"},{"product_id":"wright-john-may-rivers-illustrator-the-fruit-grower-s-guide","title":"WRIGHT, John; May RIVERS ( illustrator ). The Fruit Grower’s Guide …","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003ePolychromatic Pomological Plates\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWRIGHT, John; May RIVERS (\u003ci\u003eillustrator\u003ci\u003e).\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e The Fruit Grower’s Guide … \u003ci\u003eLondon\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003ci\u003e J. S. Virtue \u0026amp; Co., Limited.\u003c\/i\u003e [1891–1894].\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThree volumes, 4to. In the original publisher’s green cloth, front boards blocked in black to a design of vines and fruit, lettered in gilt, spines lettered in black over gilt and blocked in gilt, edges gilt; pp. xii, 344, [4 (advertisements)]; viii, 344, [4 (advertisements)]; viii, 363, [1], [4 (advertisements)]; 43 chromolithographic plates with tissue guards, chromolithographic titles, numerous engravings in the text; cloth a little rubbed to  extremities, spine ends lightly bumped; 1 plate in vol. 3 a little loose; a very good, bright set.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of this richly illustrated pomological guide, with 43 finely executed chromolithographs by May Rivers and instructional diagrams by Worthington G. Smith and George Shayler.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEdited by the horticulturist John Wright (1836–1916), member of the Royal Horticultural Society and long-serving editor of the \u003ci\u003eJournal of Horticulture\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Fruit Grower’s Guide\u003c\/i\u003e is an important contribution to the literature of British pomology, combining practical horticultural instruction with an extensive programme of botanical illustration. Issued simultaneously in six parts and in the present three-volume format, it brought together the latest horticultural practice in the cultivation of hardy and glasshouse fruits, with detailed guidance on, \u003ci\u003einter alia\u003c\/i\u003e, propagation, pruning, training, orchard management, pest control, and the selection of varieties. Intended for both professional fruit growers and knowledgeable amateurs, the work reflects the growing systematisation of British pomology during the closing decades of the nineteenth century, while recording many of the cultivars that defined Victorian orchards.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe numerous diagrams by Worthington G. Smith – one of the foremost botanical illustrators and mycologists of his generation – and George Shayler provide lucid demonstrations of grafting, pruning, especially training, and other practical techniques. The chromolithographic plates, frontispieces, and title-pages reproduce watercolours by Mary Laura (‘May’) Rivers (1862–1939), daughter of Thomas Francis Rivers of the celebrated Rivers Nursery at Sawbridgeworth. Founded by her grandfather Thomas Rivers, the nursery became one of the foremost centres of British pomology, responsible for the introduction and dissemination of numerous improved fruit varieties, including the celebrated Conference pear, which Thomas Francis Rivers helped establish in commercial cultivation following its success at the National Pear Conference of 1885. Rivers produced her drawings directly from cultivated specimens, many representing varieties introduced or disseminated by the family nursery. Executed with equal attention to botanical accuracy and aesthetic effect, the plates were intended as reliable aids to the identification of fruit varieties, and constitute some of the finest published examples of late Victorian pomological illustration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125823\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741428953465,"sku":"2125823","price":1000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125823.jpg?v=1790768626"},{"product_id":"jeffreys-john-gwyn-british-conchology-or-an-account-of-the-mollusca-which-now-inhabit-the-british-isles-and-the-surrounding-seas","title":"JEFFREYS, John Gwyn. British Conchology, or an Account of the Mollusca which now Inhabit the British Isles and the Surrounding Seas.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003ePresented by the Author to His Children\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJEFFREYS, John Gwyn.\u003c\/strong\u003e British Conchology, or an Account of the Mollusca which now Inhabit the British Isles and the Surrounding Seas. \u003ci\u003eLondon: John van Voorst.\u003c\/i\u003e 1862-69.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFive volumes, 8vo. Original purple cloth with gilt lettering to spines; vol. I: pp. cxiv, 341, [1], [16 (advertisements)]; vol. II: pp. xiv, 465, [1], [16 (advertisements)]; vol. III: pp. [2], 393, [1]; vol. IV: pp. [2], 486, [2], [2 (advertisements)]; vol. V: pp. [2], 258, [2], [10 (advertisements)]; with 5 hand-coloured lithographed frontispieces and 142 lithographed plates; spines chipped to heads and feet, with loss to vols I, IV and V, bindings tender particularly in vol I, generally internally clean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA first edition set inscribed by the author to two of his children.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Gwyn Jeffreys (1809–1885) was a Swansea-born barrister whose main love was conchology. He was more than a gentleman collector. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1840, he retired from the law in 1866 to pursue dredging operations on his yacht Osprey in the scientific search for malacological specimens. His five-volume \u003ci\u003eBritish Conchology\u003c\/i\u003e was considered to be the best book on the subject at the time, although Jeffrey’s expertise later spread far into the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eProvenance\u003c\/i\u003e: the versos of the front free pastedowns of the first four volumes are each inscribed in ink by Jeffreys to two of his six children, Howel (1844–1917) and Edith (1847–1946).  Howel, the only son, followed his father into the law.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e[\u003ci\u003eoffered with:\u003c\/i\u003e]\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJEFFREYS, John Gwyn.\u003c\/strong\u003e British Conchology, or an Account of the Mollusca which now inhabit the British Isles and the surrounding seas. \u003ci\u003eLondon: John van Voorst\u003c\/i\u003e. 1862–69.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFive volumes, 8vo. Original purple cloth with gilt lettering to spines; vol. I: pp. cxiv, 341, [1]; vol. II: pp. xiv, 465, [1]; vol. III: pp. [2], 393, [1]; vol. IV: pp. [2], 486, [2]; vol. V: pp. [2], 258, [2]; with 5 hand-coloured lithographed frontispieces and 142 lithographed plates (\u003cstrong\u003eincluding 102 hand-coloured\u003c\/strong\u003e); bindings a little rubbed, a very good set.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAnother first edition set, in variant binding, with the scarce 102 hand-coloured plates in volume V, usually found uncoloured.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNissen 2103.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125790\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741433901433,"sku":"2125790","price":1250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125790.jpg?v=1790768649"},{"product_id":"da-costa-emanuel-mendes-historia-naturalis-testaceorum-britanniae-or-the-british-conchology-containing-the-descriptions-and-other-particulars-of-natural-history-of-the-shells-of-great-britain-and-ireland-illustrated-with-figures-in-english-and-in-f","title":"DA COSTA, Emanuel Mendes. Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British Conchology: Containing the Descriptions and Other Particulars of Natural History of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland: Illustrated with Figures, in English and in F…","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eThe Major Work of a Scientific Embezzler\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDA COSTA, Emanuel Mendes.\u003c\/strong\u003e Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British Conchology: Containing the Descriptions and Other Particulars of Natural History of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland: Illustrated with Figures, in English and in French. \u003ci\u003eLondon\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003ci\u003e Printed for the Author\u003c\/i\u003e. 1778.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4to. Contemporary half calf with marbled paper sides, flat spine ruled in gilt and with red gilt morocco lettering-piece, sometime rebacked with original spine relaid; pp. xii, 1–138, [2], 139–254, vii, [2]; 17 ff. hand-coloured plates, parallel English and French text; pp. 237–242 misbound between pp. 226 and 227; bound without final leaf of subscribers; binding rubbed to extremities with slight loss to marbled paper at edges, calf to corners largely perished; light marginal spotting, mainly to prelims; occasional pencilled marginal notes mainly referring to the misbinding; a very good copy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of the first major British malacological work to follow the Linnean binomial system.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDescended from a Portuguese Sephardi family, Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717–1791) was, on the one hand, the first Jewish Fellow of the Royal Society, elected on the strength of his knowledge of shells and fossils. On the other hand, as clerk of the Royal Society he was found guilty of embezzling members’ subscription fees and in 1767 was sentenced to five years in debtors’ prison. Upon his release, he was able to scrape a living as a lecturer and shell dealer and began to rebuild his relationships. He secured the patronage of Sir Ashton Lever, the owner of the great collection that was displayed at Leicester House in London from 1775 to 1786 as the Leverian collection, and subscriptions from Thomas Martyn, Thomas Pennant, and the Dowager Duchess of Portland in order to produce this, his last and most ambitious scientific work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDa Costa’s work was unprecedentedly comprehensive, as he paid attention to even the smallest species and gave binomial names that are still in use today. The work’s usefulness in addressing species that extend beyond British waters is shown in the bilingual text, and the book did receive a wide scientific audience. It became noted for da Costa’s approach to the Linnean system, in which he challenged and refined several of the descriptors used by Linnaeus, and for the delicacy of the plates.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eESTC T113819; Nissen 2785.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125788\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741440422265,"sku":"2125788","price":1300.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125788a.jpg?v=1790768674"},{"product_id":"perry-george-conchology-or-the-natural-history-of-shells-containing-a-new-arrangement-of-the-genera-and-species-illustrated-by-coloured-engravings-executed-from-the-natural-specimens-and-including-the-latest-discoveries","title":"PERRY, George Conchology, or the Natural History of Shells: Containing a New Arrangement of the Genera and Species. Illustrated by Coloured Engravings, Executed from the Natural Specimens, and Including the Latest Discoveries.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003e‘They Assailed His Nomenclature with Hatred and Abuse’\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePERRY, George\u003c\/strong\u003e Conchology, or the Natural History of Shells: Containing a New Arrangement of the Genera and Species. Illustrated by Coloured Engravings, Executed from the Natural Specimens, and Including the Latest Discoveries. \u003ci\u003eLondon: William Miller.\u003c\/i\u003e 1811.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLarge folio. Contemporary red morocco-backed boards with drab paper sides, modern rebacking, spine ruled and lettered directly in gilt; pp. [iv], ff. [61] of hand-coloured aquatint plates after John Clarke, each plate with leaf of descriptive letterpress to recto only; boards rubbed and worn at extremities, some toning to edges, vertical creases to free endpapers with 25-mm loss to foredge of rear free endpaper, light offsetting but plates generally clean, very good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeveral errors occur in the numbering of the plates: plate 5 is misnumbered as 3; plate 6 is misnumbered as 4; plate 23 is misnumbered as 5; and plate 54 is misnumbered as 3.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of the only study of shells to be illustrated with hand-coloured aquatints, introducing a new classification system for molluscs to counter Linnaeus’s restrictive system of classification of lower animals.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn architect and stonemason by profession, George Perry (1771–1821) was one of a number of naturalists who took issue with the constraints of Linnaean classification: Linnaeus, for instance, divided all invertebrates into only two groups, insects (\u003ci\u003eInsecta\u003c\/i\u003e) and worms (\u003ci\u003eVermes\u003c\/i\u003e). Inspired by the work of French scientists such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who expanded the invertebrates into ten different classes, Perry designed this work to introduce a new classification system for molluscs, as well as to inspire artists with the intricate beauty of the shells themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnfortunately for Perry, he had a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In his native Liverpool, a city built on slavery, his abolitionist views meant that he received little support for his conchological work and had to move to London to find a receptive audience. Even then, his rejection of Linnaeus was ahead of its time, and his embrace of French notions inopportune when the two nations were at war. Peers such as George Brettingham Sowerby, whose work was directly challenged by Perry’s new system, conspired to suppress the work: ‘They ungenerously denied Perry’s right to be cited, and assailed his nomenclature with hatred and abuse. So powerful and evil was their influence that Perry’s \u003ci\u003eConchology\u003c\/i\u003e has been practically suppressed by London writers. Even the brothers Adams, who offended against modern usage by adopting names from polynomial and pre-Linnean writers, yet refused to admit Perry’s names’ (Charles Hedley, \u003ci\u003esee below\u003c\/i\u003e). The high price of the volume, £16 6s, also limited its appeal, so that even when Lamarck’s work came to be accepted in Britain in the 1820s, Perry’s book was unjustly forgotten.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNonetheless, a number of Perry’s classifications remain valid today, while John Clarke’s illustrations are admired for their artistic flair, if not always for their anatomical accuracy. The specimens were drawn from a number of private collections including that of Elizabeth Bligh, given to her by her husband, Captain William Bligh of H.M.S. \u003ci\u003eBounty\u003c\/i\u003e fame.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNissen ZBI 1:3134. See Hedley, ‘Studies on Australian Mollusca. Part VI.’ Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales (1902).\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125787\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741444256121,"sku":"2125787","price":5500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125787b.jpg?v=1790768691"},{"product_id":"albin-eleazar-w-derham-a-natural-history-of-english-insects-illustrated-with-a-hundred-copper-plates-curiously-engraven-from-the-life-and-for-those-who-desire-it-exactly-coloured-by-the-author","title":"ALBIN, Eleazar; W. DERHAM. A Natural History of English Insects. Illustrated with a Hundred Copper Plates, Curiously Engraven from the Life: and (for Those who Desire it) exactly Coloured by the Author …","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003e‘One of the First Beautiful Books of Natural History’\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eALBIN, Eleazar; W. DERHAM.\u003c\/strong\u003e A Natural History of English Insects. Illustrated with a Hundred Copper Plates, Curiously Engraven from the Life: and (for Those who Desire it) exactly Coloured by the Author … \u003ci\u003eLondon: [William Bowyer for] John and William Innys.\u003c\/i\u003e 1749.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4to.  Contemporary mottled calf, large gilt dentelle borders, central gilt floral lozenge incorporating two pairs of birds, spine richly gilt in compartments with central dove tools, board edges and turn-ins roll-tooled in gilt to a floral design, red sprinkled edges;  π2 A–N4 O2, with 100 hand-coloured copper-engraved plates after Albin, plate 84 heightened with gold, each dedicated to a subscriber at foot and with facing letterpress description, lacking the 26-page section to the rear containing ‘[William] Derham’s Notes on Mr. Albin’s History of English Insects’ (as usual), bound with the title-page and dedication to the 1724 edition (\u003ci\u003esee below\u003c\/i\u003e); endcaps chipped, corners a trifle bumped; subtle early marginal repair to plates 19, 71, and 72 verso, occasional light offsetting from plates but very good; 16 pp. manuscript notes in nineteenth-century hand loosely laid in (\u003ci\u003esee below\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFifth edition, one of 150 copies, with 100 hand-coloured plates each dedicated to an individual subscriber, commissioned by botanist and gardener, Mary Somerset.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst published in 1720, this work, ‘one of the first beautiful books of natural history’ (Brunet, \u003ci\u003etrans.\u003c\/i\u003e), was the first English book on lepidoptera to be illustrated with colour plates. Each plate was engraved from drawings by English naturalist Eleazar Albin (c. 1680–1741\/2), a figure about whom relatively little is known outside his own account in the work’s preface. He is generally understood to have been a professional drawing master and watercolourist who turned to natural history illustration around 1709, developing an association with the silk-weaver and naturalist Joseph Dandridge and gaining a particular reputation for his entomological paintings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe project was initially undertaken under the patronage of horticultural virtuoso Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort (1630–1715), and continued after her death with the support of over 150 subscribers, including aristocratic patrons and prominent figures in the scientific community such as Hans Sloane. Each plate is dedicated to an individual subscriber, among them Caroline of Ansbach as Princess of Wales, later Queen Caroline of Great Britain (1683–1737), to whom the work as a whole is dedicated, Mary Somerset, and Elizabeth Brudenell, Countess of Cardigan (1689–1745). \u003cstrong\u003eNearly forty percent of the original subscribers were women, a reminder that lepidoptery was among the few early scientific fields in which women played a significant role: ‘the first collectors of entomology were women of high social standing’\u003c\/strong\u003e (Salmon, \u003ci\u003eThe Aurelian Legacy\u003c\/i\u003e (2000)).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlbin’s initial interest in his insect subjects lay in the aesthetic appeal of their ‘various Forms and beautiful Colours’ (preface). He regarded it as his duty to portray the creatures ‘exactly after the Life; having observed it as a great Fault in those who have gone before me in this Way, that they either did not look often enough at their Pattern, or affected to make the Picture outdo Nature’.  He also became a serious and diligent observer of insect behaviour, confident enough to refute current theories that butterflies were born from the plants that nurtured them but came from ‘Animal Parents of the same Species’. His work, illustrating the insects in their various life-stages feeding on plants, is clearly influenced by Maria Sibylla Merian but has a distinctive vibrancy of its own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe text was continuously edited and reprinted by various booksellers throughout the eighteenth century, often featuring expanded observational notes by the theologian and natural philosopher William Derham (1657–1735), the first person to measure accurately the speed of sound. For the present edition ‘the entire text [was] reset and a number of errors corrected’ (Lisney). In our copy, the title-page and dedication leaf from the 1724 second edition are bound in before the 1749 title-page.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eProvenance\u003c\/i\u003e: Loosely laid into our copy are manuscript notes in French, datable to 1877, including one written on the verso of the wedding invitation of Alexandre Robert François, comte du Barry de Merval (1845–1881), conseiller général de la Seine-Inférieure, and Marie Julie Henriette Arnois de Captot (1857–1937). The unidentified author was evidently an attentive student of entomological literature. The notes constitute a detailed index to the plates, identifying and describing the individual figures represented and supplying extensive bibliographical cross-references to a range of leading eighteenth-century entomological works, including Jacques Louis Engramelle, Jacob Christian Schäffer, Moses Harris, August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof, Carl Linnaeus, and Eugenius Johann Christoph Esper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eESTC T85943 (‘Printed by William Bowyer; his records show 150 copies printed’); Brunet I, col. 142\u003c\/i\u003e (‘one of the first fine natural history books with colour plates’, \u003ci\u003etrans\u003c\/i\u003e.’); \u003ci\u003eLisney 123; Nissen 58.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125138\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741447696761,"sku":"2125138","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125138e.jpg?v=1790768708"},{"product_id":"montagu-george-testacea-britannica-or-natural-history-of-british-shells-marine-land-and-fresh-water-including-the-most-minute-systematically-arranged-and-embellished-with-figures-part-i-ii","title":"MONTAGU, George Testacea Britannica, or, Natural History of British Shells, Marine, Land, and Fresh-Water, Including the Most Minute: Systematically Arranged and Embellished with Figures. Part I [–II].","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eExtra-Illustrated with Original Watercolours\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMONTAGU, George\u003c\/strong\u003e Testacea Britannica, or, Natural History of British Shells, Marine, Land, and Fresh-Water, Including the Most Minute: Systematically Arranged and Embellished with Figures. Part I [–II]. \u003ci\u003eLondon: J.S. Hollis.\u003c\/i\u003e 1803.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo parts in one, 4to. Modern half calf with marbled sides, spine gilt-ruled in compartments with raised bands, lettered directly in gilt, marbled edges; pp. [2], xxxvii, [3], 1–291, [3], 293–606, [4]; with 2 hand-coloured additional engraved titles and 16 hand-coloured copper-engraved plates at end; variable foxing (most severe to first two quires of vol. 2), offsetting from titles of each part, staining from previously inserted paper slip to pp. 331–334 and pp. 435–438, marginal paperflaw to Xx1, occasional spotting, but generally good; with contemporary watercolour illustrations of shells in the margins to 20 pp. (\u003ci\u003esee below\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of Montagu’s pioneering study of British molluscs with plates by Elizabeth D’Orville, his self-taught collaborator and long-term partner, an especially attractive copy, with contemporary hand-colouring and original watercolour marginalia depicting shells.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGeorge Montagu (1753–1815), soldier, naturalist and fellow of the Linnean Society, is best known for his \u003ci\u003eOrnithological Dictionary\u003c\/i\u003e (1802), but \u003ci\u003eTestacea Britannica\u003c\/i\u003e was his most important contribution to the field of conchology. Published in December 1803, it was the first comprehensive monograph on the molluscs of the British Isles, describing some 470 species of marine, freshwater and land shells, around 100 of them new. His specimens were largely drawn from his own cabinet, collected ‘from their native places’, particularly in the West Country; at Salcombe, for example, he observed \u003ci\u003ePholas dactylus\u003c\/i\u003e and related species boring into submerged tree stumps, where local fishermen collected them for bait. His insistence on observing molluscs as living organisms, rather than treating their shells in isolation, gave his descriptions an unusually empirical character and helped shape the subsequent study of British malacology.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMontagu was not, however, always able to establish a secure British provenance for the shells submitted to him. \u003ci\u003eTestacea Britannica\u003c\/i\u003e includes a number of foreign species which do not belong to the British malacofauna, and Montagu himself acknowledged the difficulty of specimens whose origins were uncertain. His reluctance to reject material supplied by correspondents, even where provenance was doubtful, resulted in several anomalous inclusions which have continued to perplex later malacologists and complicate the nomenclatural history of the work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe illustrations were prepared by Elizabeth D’Orville, a largely self-taught artist who became Montagu’s mistress, collaborator and long-term partner.\u003c\/strong\u003e Working directly from specimens, she engraved and partly coloured the figures, and Montagu acknowledged that her assistance was particularly important in depicting the smaller species, writing that without it ‘this work might never have seen the light’. Their relationship was a scandalous one. Montagu’s marriage to Ann Courtenay, niece of the 3rd Earl of Bute, had produced six children, but his involvement with D’Orville eventually resulted in his court-martial and dismissal from the Wiltshire militia. By 1798 he had left his wife and established a household with D’Orville in Devon, thereafter devoting himself to natural history. His will entrusted D’Orville with his library, natural-history collections, manuscripts and other property, acknowledging ‘the very great assistance she has given me in my pursuits of natural history’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA particularly appealing feature of the present copy is the presence of original watercolours on some twenty pages, chiefly devoted to land snails. Neatly and skilfully rendered, with several species shown from different aspects, the drawings appear to be the work of a knowledgeable contemporary reader and perhaps collector. They provide an especially charming counterpoint to D’Orville’s printed illustrations, extending Montagu’s project of close observation into the margins of the book itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter Montagu’s death, his natural history collection descended to his son, Henry D’Orville, before entering the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter in 1874. The museum retains examples of roughly 300 species treated in \u003ci\u003eTestacea Britannica\u003c\/i\u003e, among them some 120 type specimens; the collection was awarded Designation status by Arts Council England in 2020 in recognition of its international importance to science. Montagu died in 1815 from tetanus after stepping on a rusty nail. \u003ci\u003eTestacea Britannica\u003c\/i\u003e was followed by a \u003ci\u003eSupplement\u003c\/i\u003e in 1808 and further papers, but remains the principal monument to his pioneering work in British malacology.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNissen ZBI 28.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2125048\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741451366777,"sku":"2125048","price":1500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2125048a.jpg?v=1790768731"},{"product_id":"whittock-nathaniel-the-art-of-drawing-and-colouring-from-nature-flowers-fruit-and-shells-to-which-is-added-correct-directions-for-preparing-the-most-brilliant-colours-for-painting-on-velvet-with-the-mode-of-using-them-also-the-new-method-of-orie","title":"WHITTOCK, Nathaniel. The Art of Drawing and Colouring from Nature; Flowers, Fruit, and Shells to which is Added, Correct Directions for Preparing the Most Brilliant colours for Painting on Velvet, with the Mode of Using Them; also, the New Method of Orie…","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eRare Drawing Manual with Plates in Two States\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWHITTOCK, Nathaniel.\u003c\/strong\u003e The Art of Drawing and Colouring from Nature; Flowers, Fruit, and Shells to which is Added, Correct Directions for Preparing the Most Brilliant colours for Painting on Velvet, with the Mode of Using Them; also, the New Method of Oriental Tinting. \u003ci\u003eLondon: Isaac Taylor Hinton.\u003c\/i\u003e 1829.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4to. Contemporary half calf with marbled sides, sometime rebacked with original spine laid on, spine with gilt floral tools and two black morocco gilt lettering pieces, marbled endpapers; pp. [4], 96, [48] leaves of plates (24 plates, each in two states, hand-coloured and uncoloured); spine and extremities lightly rubbed, slight fading to gilt tooling; internally generally clean, some offsetting to plate XXI and light pencil marks to plate XXII; very good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of this uncommon drawing manual, with each of the plates issued in two states, hand-coloured and uncoloured, by Nathaniel Whittock, ‘one of the first to publish lithograph illustrations systematically coloured by hand’ (Abbey).\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhittock (1791–1860) is now best known as a topographical engraver producing bird’s-eye views of cities including London, Oxford, York, and Melbourne in the 1830s–50s. In 1829, when this book was published, he had recently moved on from being ‘Teacher of Drawing and Perspective, and Lithographist to the University of Oxford’, where he also worked with the Ashmolean Museum and in scientific circles, to establish himself in north London as a society drawing master.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first twenty lessons in this book are devoted to the drawing and colouring of specimens as varied as the humble apple blossom, the exotic passion flower, grapes, and assorted molluscs. The final four cover more general artistic topics, including the use of velvet as the best surface for botanical illustration and the use of stencils on soft paper. Each subject is illustrated with paired plates, one hand-coloured to demonstrate the finished effect and one uncoloured to emphasise draughtsmanship.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhittock’s book is a particularly attractive example of a popular type of early nineteenth-century instructional drawing manual combining natural history and practical instruction, and was followed a year later by another volume on birds, mammals and insects. After this short period, he increasingly concentrated on the cityscapes on which his reputation rests, so this work represents his most important contribution to botanical art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWe find only five copies in the UK (NLS, Newcastle, Royal Horticultural Society, V\u0026amp;A, and Edinburgh).\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNissen BBI 2138.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2124912\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741452710265,"sku":"2124912","price":1200.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2124912c.jpg?v=1790768748"},{"product_id":"gleadall-eliza-eve-the-beauties-of-flora-with-botanic-and-poetic-illustrations-being-a-selection-of-flowers-drawn-from-nature-arranged-emblematically-with-directions-for-colouring-them","title":"GLEADALL, Eliza Eve. The Beauties of Flora with Botanic and Poetic Illustrations: Being a Selection of Flowers Drawn from Nature, Arranged Emblematically, with Directions for Colouring Them.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eDrawing Lessons from the Headmistress\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGLEADALL, Eliza Eve.\u003c\/strong\u003e The Beauties of Flora with Botanic and Poetic Illustrations: Being a Selection of Flowers Drawn from Nature, Arranged Emblematically, with Directions for Colouring Them. \u003ci\u003eWakefield: published by Eliza Eve Gleadall, at Heath Hall.\u003c\/i\u003e [1834-1836].\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4to. Two volumes (35 x 27cm, 37 x 27cm). Original publisher’s green cloth decorated in blind with foliate pattern, with gilt lettering in foliate border to fronts and gilt foliate corner decorations to sides, all edges gilt; pp. viii, 40; [2], iv, 72; 2 lithographed hand-coloured title-pages and 41 hand-coloured plates; lacking tissue guard for volume 1, plate 20, spines a little sunned, occasional foxing mainly to text leaves, very good; nineteenth-century bookplate of Henry Greenwood to front pastedown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of this self-published flower-drawing manual by Eliza Eve Gleadall (1806–1887), headmistress of a ladies’ seminary near Wakefield, copiously illustrated with life-size botanical plates. Rarely found complete in both volumes; only 115 copies were printed for subscribers of volume I, and probably fewer of volume II.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA striking example of the early nineteenth-century vogue for instructional flower-drawing manuals, this work is distinguished by its series of finely executed life-size plates, the categorisation of each plant by its poetic symbolism, and a text which combines literary allusion, copious verse, and sharp-eyed observation of, \u003ci\u003einter alia\u003c\/i\u003e, the camellia, rhododendron, lady’s slipper orchid, passionflower, and waterlily.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe work is the self-published production of Eliza Eve Gleadall, headmistress of a ladies’ seminary at Heath Old Hall near Wakefield, and one of a relatively small number of women to publish botanical instructional works in Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century, following predecessors such as Elizabeth Steele Perkins (1768–1852). The plates were drawn from ornamental foreign plants cultivated in the gardens of the great houses in and around Wakefield, preserving a record of species then prized by collectors and gardeners. The project attracted the support of figures at the highest levels of contemporary scientific and ecclesiastical society: Gleadall acknowledges the assistance of Samuel Curtis, proprietor of \u003ci\u003eCurtis’s Botanical Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, in the preparation of the plates, while the second volume is dedicated, by permission, to the Archbishop of York.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeyond its artistic and educational aims, the work has acquired lasting botanical significance. Research published by the Passiflora Society International has shown that \u003cstrong\u003ethe passionflower depicted in Plate I and identified by Gleadall as \u003ci\u003ePassiflora racemosa\u003c\/i\u003e is in fact the earliest known representation of a hybrid now designated \u003ci\u003ePassiflora\u003c\/i\u003e ‘Kew Gardens’\u003c\/strong\u003e (\u003ci\u003ePassiflorunde\u003c\/i\u003e 15[1], 2007, pp. 2–4). The plates preserve not only a record of contemporary horticultural taste but also evidence for the early cultivation of a plant whose hybrid status would not be recognised until much later.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite the ambition of the undertaking and the prestige it attracted, the work remained Gleadall’s sole publication. Following her marriage in 1838 to Benjamin Williamson, a Leeds widower, she relinquished the management of her seminary and did not publish further botanical illustrations.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDunthorne 123; Great Flower Books, p. 57; Nissen BBI 715.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2124911\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741459034489,"sku":"2124911","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2124911c.jpg?v=1790768766"},{"product_id":"blair-patrick-botanick-essays-in-two-parts-with-many-curious-remarks-and-several-discoveries-and-improvements-adorn-d-with-figures","title":"BLAIR, Patrick. Botanick Essays: in Two Parts … with Many Curious Remarks, and Several Discoveries and Improvements: Adorn’d with Figures ...","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003ePlants and Sex\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBLAIR, Patrick.\u003c\/strong\u003e Botanick Essays: in Two Parts …  with Many Curious Remarks, and Several Discoveries and Improvements: Adorn’d with Figures ... \u003ci\u003eLondon: Printed by W. and J. Innys.\u003c\/i\u003e 1720.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo. Contemporary panelled calf, double-filleted and tooled in blind, spine with raised bands and gilt brown morocco lettering-piece; pp. [36], 414, [2]; 5 copper-engraved folding plates; joints cracked but holding firm, tailcap perished, headcap chipped, extremities lightly rubbed; internally very good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of Blair’s ‘most outstanding work’, on sexual differentiation in plants, dedicated to Sir Isaac Newton.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Royal Society granted licence for publication on 22 October 1719, during Newton’s presidency and as the dedicatee of the work; although the title-page is dated 1720, publication likely occurred in late 1719. The work is a systematic treatment of plant generation and fertilisation, combining observational experiment with comparative botanical analysis, and is regarded as a key pre-Linnaean statement of plant sexuality. It comprises a series of essays derived from Royal Society lectures, with experimental observations intended to demonstrate the role of pollen in reproduction and to establish sexual differentiation in plants.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlair had long-standing connections with the Royal Society, which intervened on his behalf following his capture with the Jacobite army defeated at the Battle of Preston in 1716, securing his reprieve from the death penalty through the influence of Hans Sloane and other Fellows. A surgeon by training, he had earlier served in the British Army before returning to Scotland in 1702, and first attracted notice with his dissection of an elephant exhibited in Dundee in 1706, the results of which were published in \u003ci\u003eOsteographica Elephantina\u003c\/i\u003e in the \u003ci\u003ePhilosophical Transactions\u003c\/i\u003e (1710); he was elected FRS in 1712.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlair’s findings were sufficiently reproducible to be confirmed by contemporary botanists and gardeners, and were later regarded as contributing materially to the wider acceptance of plant sexual theory in eighteenth-century England. Five engraved folding plates illustrate the experimental apparatus, including devices employed in Blair’s investigations of plant reproduction, together with botanical diagrams of floral and reproductive structures central to his theory of plant sexuality. In 1790, Pulteney described \u003ci\u003eBotanick Essays\u003c\/i\u003e as ‘a most outstanding work’, noting that Blair’s exposition ‘contributed greatly to the extension of the knowledge and the confirmation of the truth of this matter in England’ (quoted in Henrey II, p. 48).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eESTC T81025; Henrey 456.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2124909\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741463032185,"sku":"2124909","price":850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2124909b.jpg?v=1790768783"},{"product_id":"bertholon-pierre-de-l-electricite-des-vegetaux-ouvrage-dans-lequel-on-traite-de-l-electricite-de-latmosphere-sur-les-plantes","title":"BERTHOLON, Pierre. De l’électricité des végétaux. Ouvrage dans lequel on traite de l’électricité de l'atmosphère sur les plantes …","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eThe Invention of the Electro-Vegetometer\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBERTHOLON, Pierre.\u003c\/strong\u003e De l’électricité des végétaux. Ouvrage dans lequel on traite de l’électricité de l'atmosphère sur les plantes … \u003ci\u003eParis: P.F. Didot jeune.\u003c\/i\u003e 1783.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo. Contemporary mottled calf, spine with raised bands, spine lettered directly in gilt and tooled to a floral design, marbled endpapers, red edges green silk place-marker; pp. xvi, 468, [ii]; 1 folded table, 3 copper-engraved folded plates; hinges tender and sometime repaired, upper board a little loose but holding, spine cracked with tailband wanting; occasional spotting; a very good copy; twentieth-century bookplate of H.F. Bienfait, plant physiologist at the University of Amsterdam.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of what is generally regarded as the earliest substantial investigation into the effects of electricity on plant growth, illustrated with folding plates depicting Bertholon’s electro-vegetometer and experimental apparatus.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePhysicist and natural philosopher Pierre Bertholon (1741–1800) was among the most active French investigators of atmospheric and applied electricity in the later eighteenth century. His reputation in the field was such that a chair of physics was created expressly for him at the Société Royale des Sciences de Montpellier in 1784. There he devoted much of his work to the practical application of electrical phenomena across medicine, agriculture, and natural philosophy. His later lectures remained sufficiently popular that he continued to teach throughout the Revolutionary period, and by 1797 was attached to the École Centrale de Lyon, where he remained active until his withdrawal from public life shortly before his death in 1800. \u003ci\u003eDe l’électricité des végétaux\u003c\/i\u003e is the first of Bertholon’s works on electricity, followed by \u003ci\u003eDe l’électricité du corps humain dans l’état de santé et de maladie\u003c\/i\u003e (1786) and \u003ci\u003eDe l’électricité des météores\u003c\/i\u003e (1787).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe present work, which spans the disciplines of physics and botany, cemented Bertholon’s place as one of the most notable electrical experimentalists. Building upon widespread Enlightenment observations that vegetation appeared to flourish following thunderstorms, he proposed that atmospheric electricity might be deliberately harnessed and regulated for agricultural benefit. To this end he devised the electro-vegetometer, among the earliest purpose-built instruments designed to collect, conduct, and distribute atmospheric electrical charge through cultivated soil and surrounding air. Particularly notable are the engraved plates illustrating Bertholon’s apparatus, among the earliest visualisations of instruments specifically designed for agricultural electrical experimentation. Through sustained electrical exposure, Bertholon reported accelerated plant growth, improved yields, and even the suppression of agricultural pests.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough Bertholon’s claims were soon subject to scrutiny and sceptical replication attempts, most notably by Jan Ingenhousz, the discoverer of photosynthesis, whose trials with similar apparatus are said to have resulted in crop failure, the work represents an important step in the early understanding and application of electricity to biological systems.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBibliotheca chemico-mathematica 368.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2124908\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741470667129,"sku":"2124908","price":550.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2124908.jpg?v=1790768793"},{"product_id":"nollet-jean-antoine-recherches-sur-les-causes-particulieres-des-phenomenes-electriques-et-sur-les-effets-nuisibles-ou-avantageux-qu-on-peut-en-attendre","title":"NOLLET, Jean-Antoine. Recherches sur les causes particulières des phénomènes électriques: et sur les effets nuisibles ou avantageux qu’on peut en attendre.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eElectric Boys and Stimulating Plants\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNOLLET, Jean-Antoine.\u003c\/strong\u003e Recherches sur les causes particulières des phénomènes électriques: et sur les effets nuisibles ou avantageux qu’on peut en attendre. \u003ci\u003eParis\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003ci\u003e Frères Guérin\u003c\/i\u003e. 1749.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e12mo. Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments to a floral design, gilt brown morocco lettering-piece to spine marbled endpapers, edges stained red; pp. xxxvi, 444; 8 copper-engraved folding plates; short splits to joints at foot, carefully restored, a few minor abrasions to boards, slight wear to corners; twentieth-century bookplates of Alfred Schmid and H.F. Bienfait to front pastedown and front endpaper (\u003ci\u003esee below\u003c\/i\u003e); a very good copy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of Nollet’s principal synthesis of experimental electricity, including accounts of his celebrated public demonstrations, among them the ‘electric boy’ experiment and large-scale conductive human chain trials, illustrated with eight folding engraved plates.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJean-Antoine Nollet (1700–1770) was a colourful character who, despite never progressing beyond the rank of deacon, insisted on using the title Abbé and became one of the great showmen of eighteenth-century science. His speciality was electricity, and he became known for staging public lectures displaying hundreds of his own inventions. He was most famous for the stunt of the ‘electric boy’ – whereby a suspended man was charged with static electricity and attracted objects towards himself – and for using a circle of two hundred monks linked by iron wire to discharge a Leyden jar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe present work brings together Nollet’s experimental investigations and theoretical system, including his formulation of electrical action as the result of the ‘effluence and affluence of a subtile fluid which is everywhere present’. Some interesting experiments are described with vacuum tubes also on the influence of electric charges on the growth of plants’ (\u003ci\u003eCatalogue of the Wheeler Gift of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, p. 355). The work is particularly notable for its engagement with contemporary interest in electroculture, as pioneered by Bertholon, as well as for its attempt to systematise a wide range of experimental observations across atmospheric, medical, and physical phenomena. The folding plates illustrate apparatus and experimental arrangements, including vacuum tube experiments and devices for generating, conducting, and controlling electrical charge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough often associated with the spectacular character of his demonstrations, Nollet’s work contributed to the formalisation of experimental practice in early electrical science and to the wider dissemination of electrical theory through public instruction. Earlier work, including his \u003ci\u003eEssai sur l’électricité des corps\u003c\/i\u003e (1746), established Nollet’s dual-fluid interpretation of electrical phenomena and secured his position within the scientific circles associated with Du Fay and Réaumur. Voltaire is recorded among his early supporters, intervening financially on his behalf in the 1730s and urging substantial payments to support Nollet’s scientific work and instruction. From at least 1743, the Royal Academy of Sciences entrusted Nollet with responsibility for research on electricity and in 1762 he became director of the Academy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eProvenance\u003c\/i\u003e: bookplate of Alfred Schmid (1899–1968), Swiss physicist and philosopher, to front pastedown. Schmid’s early career saw him working as a researcher in physical chemistry at the University of Basel, patenting inventions in the fields of electrochemistry and synthetic materials, to which this book was clearly relevant. In 1932 he moved to Berlin to pursue the commercial development of his ideas. This proved to be a mistake, as his involvement in non-Nazi youth groups led to him being imprisoned by the Gestapo for several months. His experiences during the war led him to lean away from science and industry towards metaphysics and religion. In 1945 he relocated back to Switzerland and wrote a spiritual treatise \u003ci\u003eTraktat über das Licht. Eine gnostische Schau\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eThe Marvel of Light. An Excursus\u003c\/i\u003e, 1957), which was followed by the unfinished \u003ci\u003ePrincipium Motus. Vom Wesen der Schöpfung\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003ePrincipium Motus. On the Nature of Creation\u003c\/i\u003e, 2007). His works are still published by the Professor Dr. Alfred Schmid-Stiftung in Zug, Switzerland.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDSB X, pp.145-148; Poggendorff II, 296; Wheeler 355.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2124907\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741476991353,"sku":"2124907","price":800.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2124907b.jpg?v=1790768817"},{"product_id":"linnaeus-carl-hortus-upsaliensis-exhibens-plantas-exoticas-horto-upsaliensis-academiae-a-sese-illatas-ab-anno-1742-in-annum-1748-additis-differentiis-synonymis-habitationibus-hospitiis-rariorumque-desciptionibus-in-gratiam-studiosae-juventutis","title":"LINNAEUS, Carl. Hortus Upsaliensis exhibens plantas exoticas horto Upsaliensis Academiae a sese illatas, ab anno 1742, in annum 1748, additis differentiis, synonymis, habitationibus hospitiis, rariorumque desciptionibus. In gratiam studiosae juventutis.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003ePirated Plants\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLINNAEUS, Carl.\u003c\/strong\u003e Hortus Upsaliensis exhibens plantas exoticas horto Upsaliensis Academiae a sese illatas, ab anno 1742, in annum 1748, additis differentiis, synonymis, habitationibus hospitiis, rariorumque desciptionibus. In gratiam studiosae juventutis. \u003ci\u003eAmstelaedami: Apud J. Wetstenium.\u003c\/i\u003e 1748.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4to. Late nineteenth-century roan with dark pebble-grained cloth sides, spine lettered directly in gilt; pp. [x], 306, [40]; with 3 folding copper-engraved plates; a little rubbed and worn at extremities; lightly spotted, with short tear to inner margin of title, affecting two letters, small closed tear to margin of 3 plates, not touching illustration, first few pp. partially detached; else very good; ink library-stamps and bookplate of Chetham’s Library Manchester.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUncommon pirated edition of Linnaeus’s catalogue of exotic plants cultivated in the Botanic Garden of Uppsala University, Sweden, between 1742 and 1748, published in the same year as the first Stockholm edition.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4to. Late nineteenth-century half roan with dark blue pebble-grained cloth sides, spine lettered directly in gilt; pp. [10], 306, [40]; with 3 folding copper-engraved plates; spine somewhat sunned and gilt muted, a little worn at extremities; lightly spotted, with short closed tear to inner margin of title (affecting two letters), small closed tear to margin of three plates, not touching illustration, first few pp. partially detached; else very good; shelfmark stamps in ink and bookplate of Chetham’s Library Manchester to front pastedown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePirated edition of Linnaeus’s catalogue of exotic plants cultivated in the Botanic Garden of Uppsala University, Sweden, between 1742 and 1748, scarce in commerce and published in the same year as the first Stockholm edition.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCompiled during Linnaeus’s tenure as Professor of Medicine and Botany, the work documents the remarkable development of the Uppsala Botanic Garden in the years following his appointment. The garden had fallen into decline after the fire of 1702 and, when Linnaeus assumed responsibility for it in 1741, contained relatively few exotic species. Through an extensive network of pupils, correspondents, and fellow botanists across Europe and beyond, he rapidly enriched its collections, transforming it into one of Europe’s leading centres for the cultivation and study of foreign plants. The present catalogue records 110 exotic species introduced under Linnaeus’s direction between 1742 and 1748, including a significant number of Siberian plants, and was prepared for the use of the University’s students.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eHortus Upsaliensis\u003c\/i\u003e combines practical horticulture with systematic observation, and is supplemented by a series of useful indices. These include, \u003ci\u003einter alia\u003c\/i\u003e, an index of plants employed in Sweden for food, the \u003ci\u003eHorticultura Topographica\u003c\/i\u003e, locating species according to their arrangement within the garden, and an index classifying plants according to the climates in which they naturally occur, reflecting Linnaeus’s interest in the geographical distribution of plants and their cultivation under different conditions. The preface details observations on the climate at Uppsala, recording a maximum temperature of 30° on Celsius’s scale on 2 July 1747 and a minimum of –28° on 25 January 1740, together with phenological observations showing that, over seven years, the oak came into leaf no earlier than 6 May and no later than 22 May. The work offers a revealing account of the practical organisation of the Uppsala Botanic Garden and of Linnaeus’s botanical methods during a formative period in its history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe work is illustrated with three folding engraved plates by Bergquist, reproducing those of the Stockholm edition and depicting \u003ci\u003eMimulus\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eCelsia\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eTussilago\u003c\/i\u003e. These accompany expanded descriptions of the species, including \u003ci\u003eMimulus\u003c\/i\u003e, which Linnaeus records as a perennial cultivated outdoors at Uppsala from material originating in Virginia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSoulsby describes the present issue as the ‘pirated edition’, whereas Stafleu and Cowan regard it as ‘a special issue of the Stockholm original with a substitute title’. Although the Stockholm edition bears the designation ‘Vol. I’, no continuation of the work was ever issued.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUncommon on the market\u003c\/strong\u003e: we trace only four copies at auction since 1977.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSTCN 260337226; Hunt 533; Soulsby 425; Stafleu \u0026amp; Cowan 4746.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2124906\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741479022969,"sku":"2124906","price":850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2124906a.jpg?v=1790768835"},{"product_id":"clarke-william-ambrose-first-records-of-british-flowering-plants","title":"CLARKE, William A[mbrose]. First Records of British Flowering Plants.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eThe First Book of Floral Firsts\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCLARKE, William A[mbrose].\u003c\/strong\u003e First Records of British Flowering Plants. \u003ci\u003eLondon: West, Newman \u0026amp; Co.\u003c\/i\u003e 1897.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo. Original limp green boards, upper board lettered in gilt; pp. 103, [1]; joints lightly rubbed, some wear to spine ends; nonetheless a very good copy; 54 pp. twentieth-century annotation in blue ink.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition in book form of this history of floral discovery, with manuscript annotations denoting the locations of over fifty plant discoveries.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost of what we know about the unsung William Ambrose Clark (1841–1911) comes from his obituary in the Journal of Botany by his fellow botanist James Britten. Clarke was a solicitor who retired to Oxford and used the Bodleian Library’s resources to fulfil his bibliographical approach to botanical science. This is his only published work and it shows, Britten comments, views on nomenclature that are ‘sentimental rather than logical’. It is, however, a significant achievement. ‘Until 1897, when William Clarke produced his \u003ci\u003eFirst Records of British Flowering Plants\u003c\/i\u003e, there was no publication where one could see the date and source of the discovery of all of the native plants in Britain and Ireland’ (Pearman).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClarke’s assiduous work in listing the first recorded scientific description of each species of the native flora of Britain was initially published in sections in the \u003ci\u003eJournal of Botany\u003c\/i\u003e between 1892 and 1896. Here it appears complete, expanded, and amended for the first time. This first edition, due to its small print run, remains elusive compared to the second edition of 1900.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are marginal notes to fifty-four of the pages. These are mainly in the form of one of ‘Bath’, ‘Bristol’, ‘Somerset’, or ‘Essex’, denoting when a plant was first identified in one of those locations, and perhaps apparently denoting the locality in which the plant was first identified and suggesting a particular interest on the part of the previous owner in the flora of these areas.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSee Britten, ‘William Ambrose Clarke, 1841–1911’, Journal of Botany 49, pp, 167–69; Pearman, ‘Chronicling the discovery of the British and Irish native floras’, Archives of natural history, Volume 45, Issue 2.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2124382\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741484986745,"sku":"2124382","price":200.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2124382.jpg?v=1790768844"},{"product_id":"sayers-brendan-susan-sex-illustrator-irelands-wild-orchids-a-field-guide","title":"SAYERS, Brendan; Susan SEX (illustrator). Ireland's Wild Orchids. A Field Guide.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eIrish Orchids, with an Original Watercolour\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSAYERS, Brendan; Susan SEX (\u003ci\u003eillustrator\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/strong\u003e Ireland's Wild Orchids. A Field Guide. \u003ci\u003eDublin: Nicholson and Bass for the authors\u003c\/i\u003e. 2008.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo. Original full light brown leather wraparound binding, in original foldout brown card box with ribbon pull, speckled edges, decorative endpapers; pp. x, 125, illustrated throughout in colour, photographs in text; with original signed watercolour by Susan Sex of common fragrant orchid bound in; fine in very good box.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNo. 17 of a limited edition of 850, signed by Sayers and Sex, this one of only fifty copies reserved for patrons, donors, and authors, featuring an original watercolour by Sex.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis book was conceived as an affordable companion to the authors’ magisterial 2004 folio volume, \u003ci\u003eIreland’s Wild Orchids\u003c\/i\u003e, described as ‘one of the most beautiful books in the history of Irish botany’ (Viney, 2009). In its most widely available form, the work appeared as a pocket-sized, ring-bound, waterproof field guide, with pages for the reader’s own notes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis special edition departs markedly from that format, with a wraparound binding and sixteen additional pages reproducing sketches and paintings made in preparation for the folio, transforming a practical field guide into a substantially more sumptuous publication. Sex’s painted studies are interspersed with photographs of orchids in the wild, while Sayers provides concise descriptions and identification keys. The resulting combination of visual and practical material was praised as ‘a notable alliance of science, art and craft, and a timely tool in the current run of orchidaceous summers’ (Viney).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eViney, Biology and Environment: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 110B (2009).\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2124357\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741488755065,"sku":"2124357","price":750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2124357a_c5249fb9-7cb8-4d74-a183-ede687f60b9e.jpg?v=1790768868"},{"product_id":"wasson-valentina-pavlovna-r-gordon-wasson-mushrooms-russia-and-history","title":"WASSON, Valentina Pavlovna; R. Gordon WASSON. Mushrooms, Russia and History.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eHistory of Hallucinogenic Mushrooms\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWASSON, Valentina Pavlovna; R. Gordon WASSON.\u003c\/strong\u003e Mushrooms, Russia and History. [\u003ci\u003eVerona: Stamperia Valdonega for\u003c\/i\u003e:] \u003ci\u003eNew York: Pantheon Books\u003c\/i\u003e. 1957.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo volumes, 4to. Original green-grey cloth with gilt red lettering-pieces to spines, in original glassine wrappers and grey cloth slipcase; vol. I: pp. xxi, [1 (blank)], 212, [4]; vol. II: pp. xii, [213]–433, [3]; 82 plates by Daniel Jacomet after watercolours by Jean-Henri Fabre, many in colour, with captioned tissue guards, 28 in-text illustrations; slipcase a little marked, glassine wrappers with portions missing from spines, spines slightly sunned, otherwise a very good set; presentation inscription to vol. I flyleaf ‘We gladly inscribe this book for Sara Delano Redmond, with affection’, signed by both authors and dated New York, 16 June 1958 (\u003ci\u003esee below\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of this encyclopaedic history of hallucinogenic mushroom use, extensively illustrated with reproductions of watercolours by naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre, no. 94 of a limited edition of 512. This set was presented by both authors to Sara Delano Redmond (1894–1983), trustee of the Walters Art Museum, a first cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and wife of Roland Livingston Redmond, president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite the title, Russia is only one pit-stop on this tour through the fungal traditions of Europe and South America as they look at varying cultural responses to mushrooms, positing the idea that the mycophilia of the Slavic people and the mycophobia of the Anglo-Saxons stem from different folkloric traditions. The Wassons’ research draws upon material held by the New York Public Library as well as contributions by Roman Jakobson, Samuel H. Cross Professor of Slavic Studies at Harvard; René Lafon, Basque chair at the University of Bordeaux; and, curiously, the poet Robert Graves, who provided ‘the missing link […] in order to round out our own conjecture concerning the death of the Emperor Claudius […] We believe that by re-reading the age-worn texts in the light of present-day knowledge, we can state with some assurance exactly what lethal agents were used’ (vol. I, p. xix).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eR. Gordon Wasson was Vice-President of J. P. Morgan, a banker whose greatest contribution was in the field of entheogenic fungi; his Russian wife Valentina was a paediatrician. It was she, a keen mushroom forager from childhood, who led her husband into mycology, at first casually but then with increasing scientific and ethnological rigour. They became seriously interested in edible mushrooms on their honeymoon in the Catskills in 1927 and were later the first Westerners to participate in a Mazatec mushroom ritual in Mexico, on a trip covertly funded by the CIA. Their Mexico trip was made famous by a photo story in TIME in 1957 (‘Seeking the Magic Mushroom’), but the present work, their first full-length book, explores it in far greater detail.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWasson had two species of psychoactive mushrooms named after him and provided the specimens used by Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, to identify the chemical structure of the active compounds psilocybin and psilocin. Timothy Leary’s reading of the Wassons’ early research into these mushrooms led to his experimentation with and promotion of LSD as a consciousness-expanding agent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis lavishly produced work was printed on handmade Magnani paper and bound by Torriani in Milan, with the illustrations in colour and collotype produced by Daniel Jacomet in Paris.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2123906\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741492064633,"sku":"2123906","price":7000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2123906d.jpg?v=1790768886"},{"product_id":"smith-james-edward-an-introduction-to-physiological-and-systematical-botany","title":"SMITH, James Edward. An Introduction to Physiological and Systematical Botany.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\"\u003eBringing Linnaeus to Britain\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSMITH, James Edward.\u003c\/strong\u003e An Introduction to Physiological and Systematical Botany. \u003ci\u003eLondon: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.\u003c\/i\u003e 1814.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo. Contemporary half calf with marbled sides, spine with raised bands, gilt rules and dark green gilt morocco lettering-piece; pp. xxiv, 407, [1 (advertisements)], 15 copper-engraved plates; front hinge cracked but holding; a little occasional spotting, previous owner’s inscription to title-page, very good; 1821 ownership inscription of Eleanor Ker, East Bolton, to title.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThird edition of this proselytising work by the founder of the Linnean Society, James Edward Smith (1759–1828).\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSmith was instrumental in spreading the popularity of Carl Linnaeus after the great naturalist’s death. In 1784, after Sir Joseph Banks turned down the chance to buy Linnaeus’s entire collection of books, manuscripts and specimens, Smith borrowed £1000 from his father, purchased the archive, and used it to found the Linnean Society, now the world’s oldest natural history society. This work is a continuation of his proselytising campaign. It introduces to the general reader the idea of botany as a science, underpinned by the work of Linnaeus and rigorous as an academic discipline. It is also an excellent survey of plant anatomy, taken structure by structure, and includes some charming plates.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eProvenance\u003c\/i\u003e: 1821 ownership inscription of Eleanor Ker (later Eleanor Gray, c. 1802–1861), here aged nineteen. Her father, General Walter Ker, was an unsuccessful claimant to the Dukedom of Roxburghe as heir to Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe; the seven-year legal battle left Ker in financial ruin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2122299\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741496193401,"sku":"2122299","price":400.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2122299c.jpg?v=1790768904"},{"product_id":"pratt-anne-the-flowering-plants-grasses-sedges-and-ferns-of-great-britain-and-their-allies-the-club-mosses-pepperworts-and-horsetails","title":"PRATT, Anne. The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns, of Great Britain, and their allies the Club Mosses, Pepperworts, and Horsetails.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eBotany for the Masses\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRATT, Anne.\u003c\/strong\u003e The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns, of Great Britain, and their allies the Club Mosses, Pepperworts, and Horsetails. \u003ci\u003eFrederick Warne and Co\u003c\/i\u003e.  [1870s.]\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSix volumes bound in three, 8vo. Contemporary half green morocco with marbled sides, spines with gilt raised bands, tools and lettering, marbled endpapers, silk place-markers, edges gilt; vol. I: pp. viii, 266; vol. II: pp. viii, 355, [1]; vol. III: pp. x, 410; vol. IV: pp. viii, 328; vol. V: pp. viii, 368; vol. VI: pp. x, 319, [1]; with 314 coloured lithograph plates and one monochrome plate; a little bumping to extremities, a little foxing, plates generally clean, very good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew expanded edition of the standard Victorian work on British flora, instrumental in raising public interest in the topic, by Anne Pratt (1806–1893), arguably the most successful female botanist of her time.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePratt’s target audience was those with no experience of botany, and though she briefly outlines Linnean classification at the beginning of the work, her approach is far more accessible than the traditional scientific treatise, with references to literature and folklore. The illustrations are the author’s own work. Being a woman and a self-taught botanist she has not been taken seriously by the botanical establishment. For instance, Blunt and Stearn disparage her mix of ‘easily digested science with miscellaneous romantic flower-lore’.  They also suggest that her highly attractive illustrations ‘no doubt owe a good deal to the artists of the firm of W. Dickes and Co. who redrew them on the stones’, conveniently ignoring the fact that this speculative criticism could be made of any artist who does not do their own engraving.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFlowering Plants\u003c\/i\u003e was first published in five volumes in 1855–66 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.  \u003cstrong\u003eThe pioneering use by Dickes under licence of George Baxter’s affordable system of colour printing, using a steel key plate and wooden coloured blocks to build each image, meant that the book could be produced relatively cheaply.\u003c\/strong\u003e It was thus made accessible to a broad audience and became the standard Victorian work on British flora, running to many editions and inspiring a generation of amateur botanists.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBlunt \u0026amp; Stearn, The Art of Botanical Illustration (1994), p. 276.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2122117\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741500944761,"sku":"2122117","price":600.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2122117f.jpg?v=1790768921"},{"product_id":"blackstone-john-fasciculus-plantarum-circa-harefield-sponte-nascentium-cum-appendice-ad-loci-historiam-spectante","title":"BLACKSTONE, John. Fasciculus Plantarum circa Harefield sponte nascentium. Cum appendice, ad loci historiam spectante.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eDedicated to Sloane, with 122 Lost Species\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBLACKSTONE, John.\u003c\/strong\u003e Fasciculus Plantarum circa Harefield sponte nascentium. Cum appendice, ad loci historiam spectante. \u003ci\u003eLondon: Henry Woodfall.\u003c\/i\u003e 1737.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSmall 8vo in 6s. Contemporary mottled calf, boards filleted in gilt, spine with raised bands, gilt red morocco lettering-piece, shelflabel to foot of spine, marbled endpapers; pp. viii, 118; woodcut head- and tailpieces; with late eighteenth-century inscription ‘found here below stairs’ to front flyleaf; some toning to title, else a very good copy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of a ‘remarkable achievement’ in local ecology, preserving over one hundred extinct species, dedicated to Sir Hans Sloane.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Blackstone (1713–1753) was a London apothecary with strong family links to Harefield, and this work was the first flora of the parish in what is now known as the London Borough of Hillingdon. ‘It was a remarkable achievement at that period for a 24-year-old just out of his apprenticeship. It contains a list of 523 plants in alphabetical order of their pre-Linnean Latin names’ (Bowlt \u0026amp; Bowlt). The book still has significant merit. Blackstone’s methodical and comprehensive work has made it a valuable point of reference for modern analyses of local extinctions: ‘By the time of the L.N.H.S. survey (1965–1976) … 122 flowering plant species recorded by Blackstone were no longer present. That is, 26% of his plants had become extinct in about 240 years ... For the British Isles as a whole it is estimated that about 15 species (i.e. about 1% of the total) of flowering plants and ferns have been lost in the last 100 years ... The greater percentage loss in the smaller area of Harefield illustrates the vulnerability of small populations’ (\u003ci\u003eibid.\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough he devoted his professional life to his apothecary’s business, the solid work represented by the \u003ci\u003eFasciculus\u003c\/i\u003e led to his encouragement in his botanical studies by Sir Hans Sloane, an acquaintance of his grandfather. He was commissioned to collect specimens for both the Society of Apothecaries and the Chelsea Physic Garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eESTC T81032; Henrey 447. See E.M \u0026amp; C. Bowlt, ‘John Blackstone (1713–1753); a London Apothecary and Botanist of his Time’, Watsonia 23 (2000).\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2121839\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741504582009,"sku":"2121839","price":800.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2121839a_ae096b33-336f-4ef9-aaa5-584e2269c8bc.jpg?v=1790768944"},{"product_id":"kent-adolphus-henry-veitchs-manual-of-the-coniferae","title":"KENT, Adolphus H[enry]. Veitch's Manual of the Coniferae.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003eWith Bad-Tempered Botanical Nit-Picking\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKENT, Adolphus H[enry].\u003c\/strong\u003e Veitch's Manual of the Coniferae. \u003ci\u003eLondon: James Veitch \u0026amp; Sons, Ltd.\u003c\/i\u003e 1900.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo. Original brown cloth, borders stamped in black, gilt pinecone vignettes to boards, spine lettered in gilt; pp. 562, [1], lithographic illustrations throughout; a few scuffs to boards, spine ends lightly bumped; internally clean and bright; a very good copy; 1910 ownership inscription of W.V. Legge at Cullenswood House to front free endpaper verso and title verso.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSecond edition of this comprehensive review of cone-bearing plants cultivated in Britain, this copy with a type-written letter on conifers from the Tasmanian Department of Agriculture to W.V. Legge, author of \u003ci\u003eHistory of the Birds of Ceylon\u003c\/i\u003e (1878–1880).\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStarted by John Veitch in the early nineteenth century, Veitch’s grew to be one of largest family-run nurseries in Europe with premises in Exeter, Chelsea, and Kingston. As well as being a thriving business it was an important source of specimens for scientific purposes through its global network of collectors. By 1914 it had introduced 1281 plants into cultivation. Forty-nine of those plants were conifers, and to bolster the company’s reputation they employed the specialist Adolphus Henry Kent (1828–1913) to produce the present work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eProvenance\u003c\/i\u003e: verso of title-page with ownership inscription of \u003cstrong\u003eColonel W.V. Legge\u003c\/strong\u003e (1841–1918), the Australian soldier and ornithologist most famous for his magisterial \u003ci\u003eHistory of the Birds of Ceylon\u003c\/i\u003e (1878–1880), with a loosely inserted letter. While commanding the forces in Tasmania in 1911, he published a ‘Report on the Tasmanian cypress pine; its range, economic value and conservation’ for the state Parliament. The research for his paper may well provide the background to the present letter. Written to Legge from the Department of Agriculture in Tasmania, it is in response to what was clearly a rather terse previous exchange on the precise taxonomy of the Douglas Fir: ‘In deference to the tenor of your marginal note on the Douglas Fir … Douglas fir is scientifically neither a fir nor a spruce …’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2114680\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741509202297,"sku":"2114680","price":350.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2114680_f9daadd1-4ccb-4ea1-9d80-e85411aabf10.jpg?v=1790768962"},{"product_id":"speechly-william-treatise-on-the-culture-of-the-pine-apple-and-the-management-of-the-hot-house-together-with-a-description-of-every-species-of-insect-that-infest-hot-houses-with-effectual-methods-of-destroying-them","title":"SPEECHLY, William. Treatise on the Culture of the Pine Apple and the Management of the Hot-House. Together with a Description of Every Species of Insect that Infest Hot-Houses, with Effectual Methods of Destroying Them.","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-variant: small-caps\"\u003e‘Pineapple Mania’ in Britain\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSPEECHLY, William.\u003c\/strong\u003e Treatise on the Culture of the Pine Apple and the Management of the Hot-House. Together with a Description of Every Species of Insect that Infest Hot-Houses, with Effectual Methods of Destroying Them. \u003ci\u003eYork\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003ci\u003e printed by A. Ward, for, and sold by the author, at Burlington-House, London; and at Welbeck, in Nottinghamshire\u003c\/i\u003e. 1779\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8vo. Contemporary tree calf, flat spine richly gilt in compartments with gilt red morocco lettering-piece, marbled endpapers; pp. v, [7 (list of subscribers)], vii–xvii, [1], 100, [3], 102–186, [2], with 2 copper-engraved plates (of which 1 folding); early ownership inscription ‘L Bright’ to title-page; hinges cracked, joints split but holding firm, spine worn with two vertical cracks, lettering-piece and endcaps chipped, slight wear to corner; light offset from plates and to title; nonetheless a very good, clean copy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition of this innovative treatise on pineapple cultivation, published at the height of ‘pineapple mania’ in Britain.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNative to tropical and subtropical America, the pineapple was first successfully cultivated in Britain by the Dutch gardener Henry Telende, in the service of the Dutch-born merchant and politician Sir Matthew Decker, at his seat in Richmond between 1714 and 1716. The fruit soon became a symbol of wealth and refinement: by the late eighteenth century, its cultivation had become a craze among the wealthy and a fashionable test of horticultural skill. Richard Bradley, Cambridge’s first professor of botany, estimated that it cost around £80 to raise a single pineapple from planting to harvest – equivalent to over £9,000 today. Those unable to afford the expense might instead hire one for display at a dinner party, at a cost of one guinea, or two if it was actually consumed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWilliam Speechly (1735–1819), an English horticulturist and gardener to William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, was a pioneer of hot-house cultivation. His treatise on the pineapple, together with his \u003ci\u003eA Treatise on the Culture of the Vine\u003c\/i\u003e (1790), ranks among the most significant horticultural works published in Britain in the eighteenth century; in it, Speechly set out one of the first effective systems for pineapple cultivation in England, contributing to the eventual dramatic fall in their cost. He advocated careful temperature control – especially the avoidance of excessive heat during the winter months – the use of heated beds of oak leaves as a more economical alternative to tanner’s bark, and the systematic elimination of pests.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Richard Bright, Esq. is listed as a subscriber, perhaps a relative of the L. Bright whose early ownership inscription appears on the title.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eESTC T63785. See Almeroth-Williams, ‘A Feast for the Senses’, University of Cambridge (2019) online.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSKU: \u003c\/strong\u003e2110857\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Henry Sotheran Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64741558550905,"sku":"2110857","price":475.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/files\/2110857.jpg?v=1790769113"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0045\/2178\/7426\/collections\/2125971d.png?v=1790772351","url":"https:\/\/sotherans.co.uk\/collections\/the-art-of-classification.oembed","provider":"Sotheran's","version":"1.0","type":"link"}