DODOENS, Rembert (trans. Henry LYTE). A Nievve Herball, or historie of plantes: wherin is contayned the whole discourse and perfect description of all sortes of herbes and plantes: their divers and sundry kindes: their straunge figures, fashions and shapes… nowe first translated out of French into English, by Henry Lyte Esquyer. London [i.e. Antwerp]: [printed by Henry Loë, sold] by my [sic] Gerard Dewes, dwelling in Pawles Churchyarde at the signe of the Swanne. 1578.
Folio. 17th-century English calf, double fillet border to boards, 19th-century reback, spine with gilt raised bands, gilt centre tools, black morocco gilt lettering piece, edges stained red; pp. [xxiv], 779, [9, index defective, see below], Old English type, some Greek, Roman and italic, woodcut title page with Lyte's coat of arms to verso, woodcut portrait of Dodoens, woodcut initials, and woodcut illustrations throughout; index lacking f. 3x1, last two leaves of "Index appellationum", "The English Table" and "A Table of the Nature, Vertue, and Dangers" (14 pp. in total), but supplied with "Index to Lyte's Herbal Names of Plant" in ff. 10 of manuscript in an 18th-century hand; boards and extremities slightly rubbed; a little dampstaining to margins of first few leaves, trimmed close at head in places, occasionally touching running titles, old paper repairs to upper and outer margins of ff. 3T2, 3T3, 3U, 3U2, and to foot of last two leaves (not affecting text), unusually clean, very good; occasional neat ink notes in an 18th-century hand, inkstamp of Bolton Public Libraries to front pastedown and margin of index.
First English edition, first published in Dutch in 1554 as Cruydeboeck and translated by Lyte from Charles de l'Eluse's French translation. This edition is scarce and is rarely found complete. This copy benefits from retaining both the title page and Dodoen's portrait.
The great work of the Flemish physician Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585) became the most translated book of the sixteenth century after the Bible, such was its popularity and influence. Part of this popularity was that the book was not written in Latin but in Dodoens's own tongue, and thereafter translated into other vernaculars, ensuring its accessibility, although it was later published in a Latin translation by Dodoens himself to appease the medical establishment. Another appealing feature was that the plants were not arranged alphabetically but in six groups for ease of identification, which not only made the book easier to use but also introduced early ideas of taxonomy.
Henrey 110; Hunt 132; Nissen 516; STC 6984.
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