Lot 246
Sweet, Robert
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 19 June 2018 at 12:00 BST
Description
The Florist's Guide, and Cultivator's Directory; Containing Coloured Figures of the Choicest Flowers, Cultivated by Florists, including Ranunculus, Carnations, Picotees, Pinks, Roses, Georginas, Polyanthus, Auriculas, Hyacinths & Tulips. London: James Ridgway, 1827-32. First edition, 2 volumes, 8vo (230 x 146mm.), 200 hand-coloured engraved plates J. Watts after Edwin Dalton Smith, contemporary green half morocco, marbled sides, spines lettered in gilt, a fine set
Footnote
Note: Robert Sweet (1783–1835) was a prominent English botanist, horticulturist and ornithologist.
Born at Cockington near Torquay, Devonshire, England in 1783, Sweet worked as a gardener from the age of sixteen, and became foreman or partner in a series of nurseries close to London at Stockwell, Fulham and Chelsea. In 1812 he joined Colvills, the famous Chelsea nursery, and was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society. By 1818 he was publishing horticultural and botanical works.
He published a number of beautifully illustrated works on plants cultivatd in British gardens and hothouses. The fine plates were mainly drawn by Edwin Dalton Smith (1800–1883), a botanical artist, who was attached to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His works include Hortus Suburbanus Londinensis(1818), Geraniaceae (five volumes) (1820–30), Cistineae, Sweet's Hortus Britannicus (1826–27), Flora Australasica (1827–28) and British Botany (with H. Weddell) (1831). He died at Chelsea, London in January 1835.
Aside from a little light offsetting from some plates to facing text, a tiny light dampstain to the extreme lower corner of a few leaves, and a very few light spots this is an exceptionally clean fresh copy with fine bright colouring.