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Lot 61

SMITH (JAMES EDWARD)
Exotic Botany: consisting of Coloured Figures and Scientific Descriptions of New, Beautiful, or Rare Plants as are Worthy of Cultivation in the Gardens of Britain... the Figures by James Sowerby, 2 vol., FIRST EDITION, R. Taylor, 1804-05[-08]

15 June 2016, 14:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £1,250 inc. premium

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SMITH (JAMES EDWARD)

Exotic Botany: consisting of Coloured Figures and Scientific Descriptions of New, Beautiful, or Rare Plants as are Worthy of Cultivation in the Gardens of Britain... the Figures by James Sowerby, 2 vol., FIRST EDITION, 120 hand-coloured engraved plates by Sowerby, plate 103 with pasted-on printed slip correcting caption, a few working loose, untrimmed in contemporary boards, ink lettering on spines, rubbed [Nissen BBI 1858; Great Flower Books, p.140; Henrey III, 1341], 8vo, R. Taylor, 1804-05[-08]

Footnotes

The scarce octavo edition of Exotic Botany, published simultaneously with the quarto edition. The work was intended "to introduce to the curious cultivator plants worthy of his acquisition from all parts of the globe" (Preface), including Australia ("chiefly collected by Dr. White at Port Jackson"), India ("from the collection of Captain Hardwicke"), the Cape of Good Hope and America.

Provenance: George Reading Leathes (1779-1836), ownership inscription on front paste-down. Leathes, a Norfolk vicar and botanist, was an acquaintance of Smith, who lived in Norwich, and supplied the specimen of Elcampane, figured as plate 1546 in Smith's English Botany; Sir Joseph Radcliffe, Rudding Park, Yorkshire, bookplate.

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