CURTIS, William. Flora Londinensis: or, plates and descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the environs of London: with their places of growth, and times of flowering, their several names according to Linnæus and other authors: with a particular description of each plant in Latin and English. To which are added, their several uses in medicine, agriculture, rural œconomy and other arts. London: Printed for and sold by the author ... and B. White and Son. 1777-98.
Folio. 6 fascicles bound in 3 vols. Early nineteenth-century full brown calf, gilt fillets and elaborate gilt central borders to spines, sometime rebacked, spines with gilt raised bands and lettering, green marbled endpapers, a.e.g.; pp. 2 (preface in vol I), 432 plates each with text leaf; text leaves with marginal numbering in pencil, very occasional light browning but generally very clean in a handsome binding, very good. Provenance: front pastedowns with bookplate of Lady Sarah Hay Williams (1801-1876). The daughter of the 1st Earl Amherst, she was herself a botanical illustrator and waterclour painter many of whose works, primarily of plants seen in India where she toured with her parents, are now held by the British Library. She had work published in Edwards's Botanical Register, while her sketches of the Loire inspired her husband Sir John Hay Williams to build Chateau Rhianfa in Anglesey for her. The botanist Nathaniel Wallich named the extravagant Burmese tree Amherstia nobilis in her honour.
First edition. Despite its parochial title, this was the first colour-plate national flora of Britain. For the first time it established an idea of the range and character of British flora for both scientist and aesthete. It is still of utmost importance in describing, as Wilfrid Blunt writes, "the distribution of the plants at that time, a distribution which has sadly changed for the worse, especially with regard to some of our rarities" (Great Flower Books, 1990 edition, p. 55). It was the first great work of William Curtis (1746-1799), and he produced 70 parts until near bankruptcy forced him to discontinue the work. He had produced 432 plates. Curtis was astute enough to realise that estate owners with fine gardens, rather than botanists, were more likely to be able to afford fine books and rebuilt his fortunes by launching the phenomenally successful Botanical Magazine. It was not until after his death that George Graves, having inherited the rights to the work from his father, one of Curtis's original artists, set about completing the work in collaboration with W.J. Hooker, adding over 200 new plates and updating the text.
The plates are the crowning glory of this work, being fully hand-coloured life size representations of every species of British plant. They are, according to E.J. Salisbury, "the most successful portrayals of British wild flowers that have ever been achieved" (Flowers of the Woods, 1945, p. 6). Curtis's original plates were by several artists including his great protegé Sydenham Edwards and J. Sowerby.
Nissen BBI 440 (incorrect plate count); Great Flower Books, 1990 edition, p. 88; Henrey 597.
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