Philosophy of Botany

London: T. Bensley for the publishers, White, Johnson and Co. ...and the author, 1810. Full Description:

THORNTON, Robert John. The Philosophy of Botany. London: T. Bensley for the publishers, White, Johnson and Co. ...and the author, [1799]-1810.

First Edition, early issue, without the words "including" on the engraved title-pages. Four folio volumes (18 1/2 x 13 1/8 inches; 470 x 335 mm). With 192 engraved plates, seven of which are folding.

Uniformly bound in contemporary diced calf. Boards with two thick gilt borders and a thick border in blind. Spines elaborately stamped and lettered in gilt. Board edges gilt. Gilt dentelles. All edges gilt. Green silk page markers. Drab green endpapers. Some rubbing to edges and corners. Outer joints with some wear but still strong. A few pages of occasional foxing. Overall a very good set.

Comprises:

Volumes I-II: Botanical Extracts or Philosophy of Botany. London: T. Bensley for the publishers, White, Johnson and Co. ...and the author, 1810.

[2], xii, [1, contents], [1, blank], 308; [2], 309-625, [1, ads] pp. With calligraphic title in vol. I, Both volumes with a letterpress title with mounted woodcut allegorical vignettes by Branston after Thurston on india paper. Two engraved plates of double-portraits by Caldwell after Opie and David depicting Priestley/Lavoisier and Mayow/Evelyn and one aquatint botanical plate by Warner after Henderson.

Volume III: Elementary Botanical Plates... Intended to Illustrate Botanical Extracts. London: T. Bensley for the publishers, White, Johnson and Co. ...and the author, 1810.

With letterpress title; engraved allegorical frontispiece by Ridley after Russell and Opie, 27 engraved portraits, one engraved view, and 75 engraved, mezzotint, and aquatint plates of botanical, scientific, and other subjects,3 of which are double-page. The double-pages plates include scenes of volcanic eruptions.

Vol. IV. [A New Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus. London: T. Bensley, 1799?]. Lacking calligraphic title. With engraved frontispiece by Bartolozzi and Landseer after Reinagle, 86 engraved, mezzotint, and aquatint botanical plates, 2 of which are folding, and 2 are double-page.

Although there is some disagreement amongst bibliographers, the three components of this work are properly known together under the title The Philosophy of Botany and were issued as such.

The high point of Romantic era botanical books and the first floral prints with landscape backgrounds. "In 1798 there appeared the first of a series of some thirty large colour plates which are unique in that they produce the first flower prints with landscape backgrounds, depicting the natural habitat of the plant. The life size flowers stand forth dramatically and the whole effect is startlingly modern. This large folio, entitled The Temple of Flora or New Illustrations of the Sexual System of Linnaeus, was published by Dr. Robert John Thornton a lecturer on medical botany at Guy's Hospital in London.

"Robert Thornton was a botanist most famous for his Temple of Flora, an eccentric, albeit beautifully illustrated, work written in praise of the sexual classification system for plants introduced by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. This work is one of his other botanical publications."(The Royal Trust Collection).

Cleveland Collections 744; Nissen BBI 1956; Pritzel 9235; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 14284-14285.

HBS 69432.

$7,500.