Beschreibung:

CURTIS, WILLIAM. Flora Londinensis: or plates and descriptions of such Plants as grow wild in the Environs of London: with their Places of Growth, and Times of Flowering; their several Names according to Linnaeus and other Authors: with a particular Description of each Plant in Latin and English. To which are added, their several Uses in Medicine, Agriculture, Rural Oeconomy, and other Arts. I-II. London (printed and sold by the Author, and B. White), (1775)-77-98. Large folio (465x285). 1 engraved title with vignette, 433 engraved handcoloured flower plates after S. Edwards a.o. (vol. 1: 217; vol 2: 216, 1 double numbered, some minor foxing and staining, a few plates with some offsetting from text, textleaves with some offsetting from plates; text with some foxing). Lacking the general index to vol. II (only fasc 5 and 6), but with the catalogue of Settle plants and the Observations on Grasses (which often are lacking). Contemporary calf, rebacked, partly worn and rubbed, inner joints partly split, gilt spines with red title lables. Handwritten index on first free endpaper in vol. II. 2 volumes. Photo. Nissen, BBI 439. First Edition. This edition, the first, of Flora Londinensis, was published in 72 parts (in six fascicules) between 1775-1798. The plates are generally unsigned, but from those that are signed it is known that the artists involved included William Kilburn Sydenham Teast Edwards James Sowerby and Francis Sansom. William Curtis (1746-1799), apothecary, had a subscription garden near London, where the members had access to the plants and the Library for the sum of a guinea a year. He also began the Botanical Magazine in 1787, and with a few lapses and several changes of editor, title and publisher, it continues today as Curtis Botanical Magazine.