Besler, Basilius. Hortus Eystettensis.
Fac. Ed. Pub. Aboca Museum Edizioni. 2006 Three volume set with 367 full-page colour plates. Large folio. Hardbacks. Contents in fine condition. Original blind decorated cream leather bindings in fine condition, each volume housed in original publisher’s cardboard case. One of 1,450 sets, this set one of 50 reserved for Folio Society members with their prospectus loosely inserted.
Deluxe facsimile of the first edition of one of the greatest flower books in existence. Published in Nuremberg in 1613, ‘Hortus Eystettensis’ is ‘the most impressive of the early 17th century florilegia’. The work was published ‘under the patronage of Johann Conrad von Gemmingen, Bishop of Eichstatt, in whose garden most of the plants were grown’ (Rix).
£3,750.00 [ref: 63844]
Bewick, Thomas. A General History of Quadrupeds.
4th. Ed. Pub. Newcastle upon Tyne. 1800 pp.[v], vi-x, 525, [i] page errata with woodcut engravings throughout. 8vo. Hardback. Contents very clean indeed and in very near fine condition. More recently rebound in full morocco leather with blind decoration to boards, lettered in gilt to spine, all in fine condition. Marbled end-papers with early bookplate to front pastedown. All edges marbled.
£275.00 [ref: 54210]
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Bewick, Thomas. History of British Birds.
2nd. Ed. Printed by Edward Walker for T. Bewick. 1805 Two volume set with wood engravings throughout. Large 8vo. Hardbacks. With bookplate of Thomas Holme Maude (1770-1849) to both volumes. Minor, scattered spotting, o/w. contents very bright and fine. Contemporary straight-grained half-morocco over marbled boards with matching end-papers; showing minor wear at top of spine of Vol. II, o/w. in thor. vg. condition.
A very pleasing large paper set. ‘The success of the ‘History of British Birds’ was immediate and complete; six editions were issued in Bewick’s lifetime’ (Mullens and Swann).
£800.00 [ref: 58669]
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Blaikie, Francis. On the Conversion of Arable Land into Pasture and on other Rural subjects.
1st. Ed. Pub. J. Dawson. 1817 pp.47. 16mo. Sewn softback. Contents very clean. Internal stitching given way in places. Original printed wrappers in vg. condition. Scarce.
Francis Blaikie, (1771-1857) agriculturist and land agent was born in Roxburghshire, Scotland and made his way to England in 1802. He was employed by Lord Chesterfield, then in 1816 he moved to Holkham Hall, Norfolk to work as Land Steward to Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester and to whom this work is dedicated.
£95.00 [ref: 59942]
Boutcher, William. A Treatise on Forest-Trees: Containing not only the best Methods of their Culture hitherto published, but a variety of new and useful discoveries, the result of many repeated experiments.
1st. Ed. Pub. R. Fleming, Edinburgh. 1775 pp.4, xlviii, 259 plus 3-page postscript. 4to. Hardback. Neat, early, signature to title-page. Contents thor. vg. to nr. fine with intermittent minor spotting. Does not contain the engraved title (present in a small number of copies) and not signed by the author. More recent handsome quarter cloth over marbled boards, lightly marked o/w. fine. A very pleasing copy.
William Boutcher was a nurseryman at Comely Garden, Edinburgh. His ‘A Treatise on Forest-Trees’ ‘was the best eighteenth-century work published on the subject and, in the opinion of Edlin, it still contains ‘much of interest and practical application in present-day forest nurseries’.’ (Henrey).
£160.00 [ref: 64606]
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Bromfield, William Arnold., (Hooker, Sir W.J. & Salter, T.B. (Eds.)). Flora Vectensis. Being a systematic description of the Phaenogamous or Flowering Plants and Ferns indigenous to the Isle of Wight.
1st. Ed. Pub. William Pamplin. 1856 pp.xxxv, 678 with map. 8vo. Hardback. Contemporary binding of green full-calf leather, richly decorated on spine and boards - spine professionally relaid, all in near fine condition. All edges marbled with matching marbled end-papers. Contents beautifully clean and in fine condition. Association copy, with dedication of ‘To the Rev. John Vernon, with the best wishes of the Author’s Sister’ neatly written on ffep. With the ‘Botanico-Topographic’ map which shows some wear at folds, still in vg. condition. Scarce, especially so with the map.
This work was published in two formats, one with the map, the other without.
£995.00 [ref: 53745]
Brookes, Samuel. An Introduction to the Study of Conchology. Including Observations on the Linnaean Genera, and on the Arrangement of M. Lamarck; A Glossary, and a Table of English Names.
1st. Ed. Pub. J. Arch. 1815 pp.vii, 164 with 11 copper engraved plates of which 9 are hand-coloured. Folio. Hardback. The magnificent plates are in nr. fine condition as are the rest of the contents. More recently, very handsomely bound in brown half calf leather over marbled boards with 5 raised bands, gilt lettering and blind tooling. Sewn headbands. Binding in fine condition. Overall a near fine copy of this sought after work. Was £1,200.00.
£950.00 [ref: 46023]
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Brookshaw, George. The Horticultural Repository. Containing delineations of the best varieties of the different species of English Fruits.
1st. Ed. Pub. London. [1820] -1823 Two volumes bound as one. Ex Stoke-on-Trent City Library copy, bound in ochre coloured boards - near fine condition. Spine indicates ‘Vol. I’, but it is in fact both volumes, complete with the 104 hand-coloured plates as called for (7 fold-out). Neat blind-stamp on title page through to p.2 and first plate, no further lib. markings. Measures 9 1/4 in by 5 3/4 in., with some plates trimmed when rebound. Volume 1 has full-title (not half title); whilst in volume 2 both full and half-titles removed. Overall contents very clean and in near fine condition. Two of the fold-out plates show some superficial wear to image at folds. Overall a very good, ex-library copy of this scarce and sought after work.
‘The best English fruit varieties were featured......in Brookshaw’s ‘Horticultural Repository’, which laid out verbally and visually the essential observations for a successful fruit plantation.’ (from ‘Pomona Britannica’, (2002) pub. Taschen).
£1,500.00 [ref: 53221]
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Buchanan White M.D., F. (Ed. (et al)). The Scottish Naturalist. A Magazine of Scottish Natural History.
1st. Ed. Perth, William Blackwood et al. 1871-1964 Sixty-nine volume set with maps, illus., and photos. 8vo. Hardback. Any spotting, which is minor, almost all confined to six vols., o/w. contents nr. fine to fine. Neat occ. annotation to title-pages. All bound in period cloth in thor. vg. to nr. fine condition (minor splash marks to three vols.) apart from six vols., more recently sympathetically rebound and in fine condition. All vols. from 1892 onwards have the charming bookplate of Dougal Graham Andrew (1926-2021), with a copy of his fascinating obituary from Scottish Birds loosely inserted. An excellent run. Scarce.
A fascinating insight into Scottish natural history. Early contributors included leading lights of the time - John Harvie-Brown, Prof. C.C. Babington, Mordecai, C. Cooke, J.P. Duncan and many others. Published thus - The Scottish Naturalist 1871/2 to 1891; The Annals of Scottish Natural History 1892-1911 and The Scottish Naturalist 1912 to 1964.
£1,495.00 [ref: 63161]
Buchanan, Robert. The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist. Edited, from materials collected by his widow.
1st. Ed. Pub. Sampson Low, London. 1868 pp.vii, 366, [1], 24 page publisher’s catalogue. 8vo. A small amount of foxing to last few pages of the publishers catalogue at rear of book, to the tissue guard facing the frontis. and to the fore-edges of the text block, o/w. contents very clean and in fine condition. In original green cloth boards, with gilt decoration and lettering to spine, all in thor. vg. condition. A thoroughly vg. copy of the 1st edition. Was £400.00.
£360.00 [ref: 47767]
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