James Sowerby | English Botany, London, 1790 [-1814], 36 vols, green half buckram

James Sowerby

English Botany; or, Coloured Figures of British Plants with their Essential Characters, Synonyms, and Places of Growth, to which are added occasional remarks. London: J. Davies for the author, 1790 [-1814]

36 volumes, 8vo (226 x 135mm.), title pages, volume 1 with epigraph, dedication to George, Lord Viscount of Lewisham and preface, 2,592 engraved hand-coloured and partially coloured engraved plates, large-scale folding plates 1760 in volume 25 and 2274 in volume 32, with volume indices and general indices to the entire set with index to Sowerby’s English Fungi in volume 36, green half buckram with marbled boards, spine gilt, edges gilt, marbled endpapers, some light foxing, occasional offsetting from text onto facing leaves, some small marginal holes in volume 2, wear to lower margin of volume 3, plate 198, head of spine becoming detached in volume 20, upper cover of volume 34 detached, extremities rubbed

A rarely complete set of Sowerby’s comprehensive record of British flowers and plants, with descriptions and large-scale coloured illustrations including magnifications of leaves, roots, and other important features, organised according to the Linnaean method. Published over 25 years, the plate engravings were produced at a rate of 100 a year. An old letter used as a bookmark with a reader’s notes and illustrations indicates the set was owned by Mary Brigg, married to Sir John Brigg (1834-1911).

LITERATURE:

Great Flower Books, p. 76; Nissen BBI 2225

PROVENANCE:

Owned in 1908 by Mary Brigg of Kildwick Hall at Keighley in West Yorkshire, wife of Liberal MP Sir John Brigg (1834-1911)