Among the highlights of our upcoming Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs Auction is this fine edition of Captain Cook's Florilegium: A Selection of Engravings from the Drawings of Plants collected by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander on Captain Cook's first Voyage to the Islands of the Pacific.
This magnificently printed and bound deluxe edition is of importance in that it publishes for the very first time some of the engraved plates of Australian plants made in the 1770s under the supervision of Sir Joseph Banks. Number 8 of only 10 copies and bound in green Nigerian goatskin, the cover incorporates an actual botanical specimen from Botany Bay, Australia and features hand-tooled 22-carat gold leaf. The superbly printed rich impressions in strong black ink make this one of the finest botanical books produced in the twentieth century. Captain Cook’s Florilegium will be offered in Lyon & Turnbull’s Rare Books, Maps & Manuscripts auction in Edinburgh on 31 August.
*All prices include buyer's premium.