![CURTIS, William (1746-1799). Flora Londinensis: or Plates and Descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the Environs of London. London: for the author and B. White, [1775]-1777-1798.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2015/CKS/2015_CKS_12114_0218_000(curtis_william_flora_londinensis_or_plates_and_descriptions_of_such_pl061618).jpg?w=1)
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CURTIS, William (1746-1799). Flora Londinensis: or Plates and Descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the Environs of London. London: for the author and B. White, [1775]-1777-1798.
2 volumes of 6 fascicules, 2° (464 x 280mm). 2 title-pages, engraved vignette in vol. I, index leaves for each fascicule in vol. I, 435 plates on 432 sheets (as called for by Hunt), all hand-coloured after Sydenham Edwards, William Kilburn, James Sowerby and others. (Lacking p2-p6 in vol. I including dedication, list of subscribers and ‘A Catalogue of Certain Plants’, preface with tear at top margin, some light occasional soiling and browning, few scattered spots.) Near contemporary tree calf, gilt spine (boards detached, extremities rubbed and chipped).
FIRST EDITION, second issue title in first volume. Curtis's reputation as a botanist was such that he was made the director of the Society of Apothecaries at the Chelsea Physic Garden in 1772. The following year he established a botanical garden for the cultivation and study of native British plants at Bermondsey in which he cultivated some 6,000 species from all over the world in his garden, including medicinal and culinary herbs, English wild flowers, trees and shrubs. For an annual subscription of a guinea patrons could visit Curtis's garden and attend the lectures he gave there, and for an extra guinea a year they could also have a share in the plants and seeds from the garden. The title in the present copy, with the different imprint, the semicolons after 'Londinensis' and spaced 'L o n d o n', is like the one in the Thordason collection in Wisconsin and the copy at the British Museum: ‘probably a later variant printed for a new supply of copies made up from stored sheets (and perhaps bound) for sale’ (Hunt). Cleveland Collections 532; Henrey 595; Hunt 650; Nissen BBI 440; Stafleu-Cowan TL2 1286.
2 volumes of 6 fascicules, 2° (464 x 280mm). 2 title-pages, engraved vignette in vol. I, index leaves for each fascicule in vol. I, 435 plates on 432 sheets (as called for by Hunt), all hand-coloured after Sydenham Edwards, William Kilburn, James Sowerby and others. (Lacking p2-p6 in vol. I including dedication, list of subscribers and ‘A Catalogue of Certain Plants’, preface with tear at top margin, some light occasional soiling and browning, few scattered spots.) Near contemporary tree calf, gilt spine (boards detached, extremities rubbed and chipped).
FIRST EDITION, second issue title in first volume. Curtis's reputation as a botanist was such that he was made the director of the Society of Apothecaries at the Chelsea Physic Garden in 1772. The following year he established a botanical garden for the cultivation and study of native British plants at Bermondsey in which he cultivated some 6,000 species from all over the world in his garden, including medicinal and culinary herbs, English wild flowers, trees and shrubs. For an annual subscription of a guinea patrons could visit Curtis's garden and attend the lectures he gave there, and for an extra guinea a year they could also have a share in the plants and seeds from the garden. The title in the present copy, with the different imprint, the semicolons after 'Londinensis' and spaced 'L o n d o n', is like the one in the Thordason collection in Wisconsin and the copy at the British Museum: ‘probably a later variant printed for a new supply of copies made up from stored sheets (and perhaps bound) for sale’ (Hunt). Cleveland Collections 532; Henrey 595; Hunt 650; Nissen BBI 440; Stafleu-Cowan TL2 1286.
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