The Botanic Garden. The Third Edition. [with] The Botanic Garden. Part II... The Third Edition

1795. London: Johnson, 1795-94.

2 vols. in one, 4to, xx, 218, 124 (2, directions to binder and advertisement); (2), viii, 200, (2, directions to the binder, lacking the errata and ads) pp. With a frontispiece to each volume, ten plates in vol. I and 8 in vol. II. Early half calf, marbled boards, newly rebacked in calf with gilt-lettered label. A very good copy if a little aged -- early manuscript note loosely inserted about the Portland Vase copied from the Morning Chronicle c. 1796.

§ Best edition. 6 plates are engraved by Blake, the best known being Fertilization of Egypt and Tornado, both after Fuseli. The third edition of part one is the only edition to include the striking Tornado plate. At page 87 appears the enigmatic circular image of an African man in chains titled "Am I not a man and a brother." Bentley 450B and C. Essick, William Blake's Commercial Book Illustrations, XXI.
The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London. It was notable for having been the first steady employer of essayist William Hazlitt as a political reporter and the first steady employer of Charles Dickens as a journalist.