Product Description
1797 and 1798.
Volumes XI & XII bound as one.
First editions thus with individual title-pages, pages 361 to 394 and 395 to 432, plus a 1-page index for each volume at the end of the book.
There are 36 hand coloured plates in each volume.
William Curtis (1746-1799) was an English botanist and entomologist.
He published Flora Londinensis (6 volumes, 1777-1798), a pioneering work in that it devoted itself to urban nature, but financial success was not found, and he went on the publish The Botanical Magazine in 1787, an illustrated gardening and botanical journal widely referred to by the subsequent name Curtis's Botanical Magazine.
The publication familiarized its readers with ornamental and exotic plants.
Artists who had previously given over their flower paintings to an affluent audience, now saw their work published in a format accessible by a wider one.
The illustrations were initially hand-coloured prints, taken from copper engravings and intended to complement the text.
Identification by a general reader was given in exploded details, some of which were given as a section.
This was accompanied by a page or two of text describing the plants properties, history, growth characteristics, and some common names for the species.
The present book contains volumes XI and XII of the publication.
The book is bound in contemporary full leather boards with five thin raised bands on the spine and gold titling on a leather label on the spine, but lacking the label giving the volume numbers.
The case of the book is in very good condition with some scuffing and a little staining to the leather on the boards and some damage with a little loss to the leather on the corner tips.
About 1/4" of the leather is missing from both spine ends and both spine edges have an unusual repair using some type of thin material (Japanese paper?).
either to reinforce or reattach the boards.
The contents are tight and clean with very slight wrinkling to the bottom third of many of the pages.
There is a noticeable water stain near the spine edge of the front and rear endpapers and there is also a mostly very faint stain on some of the pages and plates.
The stain affects up to roughly the bottom third of about 1/4 of the contents of volume XI and about 1/3 of the contents of volume XII.
On most of these pages it is barely noticeable.
Page 376 and the plate facing page 377 also have some light foxing or spotting.
There is no inscription.
![[First Edition] The Botanical Magazine; or, Flower-Garden Displayed: in which the most Ornamental Foreign Plants, Cultivated in the Open Ground, the](https://r.kelkoo.com/resize.php?country=ca&merchantId=100567270&categoryId=5101&trackingId=96985762&width=auto&height=auto&image=https%3A%2F%2Fpictures.abebooks.com%2Finventory%2F32458500809.jpg&sign=mVJiY_sX.ZsIx_ZX8nz8NZt.EH7.T9f4aUU23Ro9hRw-)
