Curtis, William.
£9,560
Rare Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: 10 January 2007 at 11:00 GMT
Description
Flora Londinensis: or Plates and Descriptions of such Plants as grow wild in the Environs of London. London: by the Author and B. White, [1775-] 1777-1798, first edition, first issue title, 2 volumes, folio, engraved title vignette to volume 1, 435 hand-coloured engraved plates on 432 leaves, after Sydenham Edwards, James Sowerby and William Kilburn, contemporary speckled calf, titles laid down and torn with slight loss to imprints and affecting the first letter of title of volume II, volume II with inner lower corner of dedication leaf, subscriber's list and preface repaired, the last two with slight loss to text, volume I without the individual indices to fasicles I-III and volume II without the general index to fasicles IV-VI, plates numbered 32 and 96 in volume 1 shaved with slight loss, occasional light marginal spotting
Footnote
Note: One of the greatest British botanical books, the first edition of the first colour-plate national flora of England.
Curtis, with the support of Lord Bute, published the first part in 1775. After ten years work on Flora Londinensis his threatening bankruptcy compelled Curtis to commence publication of The Botanical Magazine, the immediate success of which allowed him to continue the publication of the Flora Londinensis, the former, as Curtis put it, providing 'the pudding', the latter the critical acclaim of his fellow botanists. The Flora also contains James Sowerby's first book illustrations, Sowerby's son recording how "Curtis engaged Mr Sowerby to join him in his botanizing excursions around London and to draw the plants while he described them, so they often worked sociably together in the open fields".
The present copy has been bound with the plants ordered alphabetically but with volume 1 following the listing given in the general index (to fascicles I-III), whilst the second volume follows the listing in the three individual fascicles (IV-VI). This copy also contains both the "General Observations... on the best Grasses" and the "Catalogue of certain plants, growing wild in the Environs of Settle." Dunthorne 87; Great Flower Books (1990) p.88; Henrey III, 595.