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[ANSON] WALTER, Richard and Benjamin ROBINS, editors.

1.

A Voyage Round the World…

Thick quarto, with strong impressions of all 42 folding engraved plates and maps, with the single leaf of directions to the bookbinder for placing the engravings; later half calf over original marbled boards. London, Printed for the Author by John and Paul Knapton, 1748.

One of the Royal Paper copies

First edition, one of 350 large or ‘royal paper’ copies, much superior to the relatively illproportioned ordinary paper issue. Cox calls the present imprint “the genuine first” and notes two issues, one for the author and the genuine first, with p. 319 misnumbered, as here. This may also be a subscriber’s copy as it has the armorial bookplate of an E. Lloyd: four Lloyds appear in the List of Subscribers, one of them “Ellis Lloyd Esq;”.

Anson’s Voyage, ‘a masterpiece of descriptive travel’ (Hill) and one of the great publishing successes of the eighteenth century, was widely read and it is unusual to find copies in as excellent condition as this. The narrative, based on Anson’s own journal, had an enormous popular success: for the mid-eighteenth-century reader, it was the epitome of adventure, and it was translated into several European languages and stayed in print through numerous editions for many years. $12,500 Borba de Moraes, I, 32; Cox, I, p. 49; Hill, 1817; Kroepelien, 1086.

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2.

[BILLINGS] SAUER, Martin.

An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition…

Quarto, with a folding map and 14 engraved plates; and library stamps; a good copy in old half calf, marbled sides. London, A. Strahan, 1802.

The Aleutians

The classic description of the Aleutian Islands. This is the only edition in English of the Englishman Sauer’s full account of the Billings voyage, on which he travelled as secretary to the captain. This was the last of the major Russian surveys of the eastern coast of Siberia, and accomplished a great deal of geographical research; they visited Kodiak, Montague Island and Prince William Sound, and saw Mount St Elias. Billings’ naval career had started under Cook: he sailed as an able-bodied seaman on the Discovery, transferring on Cook’s death to the Resolution. His voyage included a revisiting of Kamchatka where Captain Clerke, who had taken over the command of the third voyage after Cook’s death, had been buried. One of the plates in this publication shows Clerke’s grave.

Sauer’s is the ‘first account in English of the first major exploring expedition sent out by the Russians to the Frozen Ocean and the North Pacific after Bering’s second expedition of 1741… The chart was made by Arrowsmith from Sauer’s notes and Captain Billings’s astronomical observations…’ (Streeter). The large folding map is of Bering Strait and the American and Asian coasts. The appendices include linguistic tables, one of which compares Kamchatkan, Aleutian and Kodiak dialects. $3250 Hill, 1528; Lada-Mocarski, 58.

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[BOUGAINVILLE] JACOBE, Jean after Francesco CASANOVA. 3.

Tigre tué en Amerique par S. A. Monseigneur Le Prince de Nassau Siegen…

Mezzotint engraving 700 x 990 mm; a fine impression; framed. Vienna, Jean Jacobe, 1787.

Bougainville, Casanova and the Prince of Nassau

A rare and very surprising pictorial image of the Bougainville expedition: we have never seen the image before and can find no record of it. Published in Vienna, it is based on a very large painting by Francesco Casanova in the collection of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia as the caption explains (“actuellement dans la Gallerie de S.M. l’Imperatrice de la Russie, il a dix pieds de large, sur huit et demi d’haut”). Francesco Casanova (his older brother was much more famous, but not for painting) trained under Francesco Guardi in Venice, worked in Paris from 1751, becoming a member of the Academy in 1763, and exhibiting at the Salon until 1783 when he moved to Vienna. Interestingly for the history of voyage art, Philip James de Loutherbourg who painted numerous Cook-related scenes and designed a number of the theatrical pieces commemorating Cook was his pupil for a time.

This very striking mezzotint depicts an exciting South American scene from Louis Antoine Bougainville’s circumnavigation. It shows the dashing Prince of Nassau-Siegen firing from horseback at a jaguar. Several dogs circle the large cat as two others join the fight on horseback. Could the second French horseman be Bougainville? The expedition’s ship the Boudeuse is seen to the right of the image. It has been plausibly suggested that the location is the coast of Argentina, where the expedition made landfall before heading for the Pacific.

To some extent the prince of Nassau and his presence on the Bougainville expedition represented the French equivalent to Joseph Banks’s involvement with Cook’s Endeavour voyage. Like Banks the prince cut a dashing figure, was extremely upper-crust, was young, had a retinue of sorts, and an interest in natural sciences. Only performance anxiety at its public nature prevented him having a lot of sex in Tahiti: whether Banks did or didn’t all the humorists played this aspect up no end. When the expedition returned to Paris, Bougainville and the prince headed off to Versailles to make their reports accompanied

by Aoutourou the young Tahitian who was to some extent under Nassau’s wing much as Omai was under Banks’s. $12,500

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4.

BRIERLY, Sir Oswald.

The Galatea in Port Phillip and at Sea.

Two oil paintings on board, each measuring approximately 310 x 415 mm; mounted and framed, circa 1868.

Fine pair of marine views by a master of the genre

Two fine maritime oil paintings by Oswald Brierly (1817-1894) with a desirable provenance: until recent times both were housed in the collection of the Brierly family. Brierly was invited by the Duke of Edinburgh to join his expedition round the world on the Galatea in 1867; a ship commissioned specially for a voyage to the Australian colonies.

The voyage included stops at Lisbon, Madeira, Tristan de Cunha, the Cape, Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney among many ports-of-call. This was the first Royal to visit Australia, notorious for the attempted assassination of the Duke of Edinburgh in Sydney.

A leading marine painter of his generation, Brierly’s work is regarded as both accurate and animated (indeed, he had previously studied naval architecture and used this knowledge to some advantage). Brierly trained as an artist at Henry Sass’s Academy, a private drawing school in Bloomsbury, effectively ‘a preparatory school’ for the Royal Academy and the British Institution where other students included Rossetti, Millais and Edward Lear.

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Brierly sailed extensively in Australian waters prior to his cruise on the Galatea. He joined Benjamin Boyd on the Wanderer in 1842 and the Rattlesnake survey voyage of the Barrier Reef in 1848. He subsequently wrote, with the Reverend John Milner, a narrative published as Cruise of the Galatea (London, 1869). In 1874 Brierly was appointed marine painter to Queen Victoria.

An early inscription on one of the old frames reads “Galatea” In Port Phillip Bay Sir Oswald Brierly. We know that the Galatea was in Melbourne in 1867 so this family identification of location is fortuitous. The second painting, in all aspects a pair to the Port Phillip Bay picture, is “at sea” without a known location.

With family provenance these two atmospheric paintings of HMS Galatea are highly attractive works by one of the most outstanding marine artists to visit Australia. $14,000 Lubbock ‘Owen Stanley R.N. Captain of the Rattlesnake’, pp.172, 246.

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5.

CERVANTES, Miguel de Saavedra.

The History of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote…

Four volumes, large octavo, 37 engravings (including the four frontispieces); a handsome set bound in half crushed morocco with marbled boards, spines gilt with raised bands, top edge gilt.

Edinburgh, William Paterson, 1879.

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Adorned by Adolphe Lalauze

An attractive set of Cervantes’ masterpiece, translated from Spanish by P. A. Motteux in 1705 and including the Life of Cervantes. This edition is renowned for its 37 etchings by Adolphe Lalauze (1838-1906), a French illustrator born in Bank-deGier, also known for his Gulliver’s Travels. Lalauze was famous for his genre scenes. “It was in France that the [late nineteenth century] revival of etching was the most fruitful. Adolphe Lalauze… is among the most prominent of the etchers who must be remembered for their illustrated books. Also in France, there developed the custom of issuing éditions de luxe for limited circulation with sets of etched illustrations in two or more states” (Harthan, History of the Illustrated Book, p. 228). $2250

6.

CHURCH, John.

A Cabinet of Quadrupeds [Large Paper Copy] …

Two volumes, folio, 402 x 266 mm, with 84 engraved images, engraved and printed titlepages; contemporary green straight-grained morocco, ornately decorated in gilt and blind with complex borders and panels to sides and spines, stylish dark grey endpapers, all edges gilt. London, Darton and Harvey, 1794-1805.

Superb Large Paper example in fine contemporary binding

A Large Paper copy, and much grander than the ordinary issue (about 400 mm as against 300-325 mm in height) with generous margins, this is a most imposing work in its two grand volumes. Originally issued in parts from 1794/5 this well-illustrated zoology has 84 copper-engraved images by James Tookey after designs by Julius Ibbetson. They vividly depict animals in their natural habitat, ranging from mice, guinea-pigs and squirrels to bears tigers and elephants, with delightful monkeys and various exotic species. At the time publication started in 1794 the Australian discoveries were still relatively recent.

The description and image of the Flying Opossum are credited to White’s Journal and to Shaw’s Naturalist’s Miscellany and Church notes that ‘this animal has not long been added to the catalogue of quadrupeds’. The fine image of the “Kanguru” depicts the mob then successfully ‘living in the Royal Garden at Kew, where they breed, and appear quite naturalised…’. There is a quite extensive 4-page description of the animal, with the remark that ‘it is to the indefatigable ardour and enterprising spirit of Sir Joseph Banks that we are indebted for our first acquaintance with this most singular quadruped’.

The accomplished wildlife and landscape painter Julius Caesar Ibbetson (Yorkshire, 1759-1812) enjoyed an early success as an artist, from the age of 17, and exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1785. He continued to exhibit until his death and was considered one of the best painters of his time, noted for his rural scenes and depictions of animals. Benjamin West compared him to the Dutch painter of the Golden Age when he referred to him as “the Berghem of England”. The engraver James Tookey (active 1800-1830) specialized in landscapes and animals, as well as portraits including his 1784 portrait of Captain Cook).

Unidentified crest on all four sides of the bindings “C.G.”, with nine-point coronet of a viscount. $5500 Freeman 702; Nissen, 886; Wood, p.290.

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[COOK: FIRST VOYAGE] HAWKESWORTH, John.

7.

A New Voyage round the World…

Two volumes, octavo, with two folding engravings and a folding map; in contemporary sprinkled calf,n New York, James Rivington, 1774.

First American account

The highly important first American publication of Cook’s first voyage. This is also the first American work to publish details of the Australian east coast, and the map is the first serious American depiction of a complete Australian continent.

The book is very rare on the market, remarkably few copies having appeared for sale in modern times, most of them imperfect or in less than satisfactory condition. American books of this period tend to survive in small numbers, invariably in poor state. In this context the copy offered here is unusually good. This is an example of the first issue, with seventeen pages of subscribers’ names (a second issue had eighteen pages, while a third issue appeared without any list of subscribers).

The frontispiece to the first volume (perhaps the second too - it is unsigned) was engraved by the American folk hero Paul Revere not long before the famous Midnight Ride, the event that ensured his leap to fame. Revere (1734-1818) was a gold and silversmith who sometimes supplemented his income with other work. During the economic depression that preceded the Revolution he began to work as a dentist and also as an engraver, producing a number of book illustrations along with more ephemeral material, such as business cards and bills of fare.

Very few accounts of Cook’s three voyages were published in America before the end of the eighteenth century: this was the first, and just six more would follow. One of the reasons for this may have been the general availability of imported English publications, but as Holmes points out, from a broadside dated 26 March 1774, there was a good economic incentive for a local publication in this case: “Whosoever would purchase the English Edition of the late Voyage round the World… must give Three Guineas for it; which excessive price has engaged James Rivington’s Proposing to the public, a complete edition of that work… for one dollar and a half…”. $22,500 Beddie, 656; Holmes, 9.

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[COOK: SECOND VOYAGE] NORTHCOTE, J. (after).

8.

The Death of Capt. Alexander Hood…

Handcoloured mezzotint measuring 554 x 655 mm. (plate size). London, Jeffryes & Co, Ludgate Hill, 1 October, 1798.

A veteran of Cook’s second voyage

Splendid mezzotint depicting the dramatic death of Alexander Hood, a Royal Navy captain who served under Captain Cook in his early career. This appears to be the only published image of Hood, making it an unusual addition to the known gallery of Cook’s men. Hood was assigned to the Resolution on 5 March 1772 as a 14 year-old midshipman, taking advantage of his prestigious family connections (he was the first cousin of admirals Lord Hood and Lord Bridport). Hood served under Cook with distinction; during the three year voyage he was nearly crushed by a falling arms chest during a storm in 1773 and was first to sight land in the Marquesas on 6 April 1774. Accordingly, Cook named Hood Island in his honour of his sharp eyed midshipman.

Upon return Hood was appointed to service in North American waters where he was promoted captain in 1781 at the age of 23. Hood fought against Napoleonic France, and this mezzotint portrays the his final moments as captain of the British man-of-war Mars.

On the evening of 21 April 1798 the Mars ambushed the French frigate Hercule off western Brittany while waiting for the tide to turn. Both vessels were equally matched with 74 guns, and due to the strength of the current the Hercule was unable to manoeuvre.

After the exchange of preliminary broadsides the ships became entangled, and an unusually bloody fire fight ensued. The French lost 315 men killed or wounded before surrender while the Mars sustained lighter casualties.

Hood was grievously wounded in the thigh and died of blood loss (a detail conspicuously absent in this romantic portrayal of the commander’s final moments). He is here pictured receiving the sword of the French captain who likewise died of his wounds, while a lieutenant points to the lowering of the French colours by moonlight through an open window behind the scene. $5850 not in Nan Kivell & Spence.

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[COOK: THIRD VOYAGE] WEBBER, John and Marie Catherina PRESTEL. 9.

A View in Matavai Bay, Otaheite.

Aquatint in sepia tones on laid paper, 290 x 430 mm, full margins, mounted. London, J. Webber, No. 312 Oxford Street, 1787.

First Aquatint Issue of Webber’s View of Matavai, Otaheite.

A very rare and separately issued View in Matavai, Otaheite prepared by the artists John Webber and Marie Catherine Prestel in 1787.

Issued in aquatint, a newly arrived techique, this is one of the most romantic and tropical scenes encountered during Cook’s voyage. The image had earlier been done as a line etching in November 1786, but Webber decided instead to experiment with the aquatint technique in collaboration with Marie Catherine Prestel, ‘an aquatint artist of some note, who had recently come to London from Frankfurt’ ( Joppien & Smith, p. 192). This is the first of two issues; a second appeared in 1788.

Webber found that this new method ‘allowed greater freedom and a wider range of evocative tones of light and shade’ ( Joppien & Smith). He ultimately prepared four aquatints with Prestel, this being one of them: all are rare. It is a famous image; as Joppien and Smith note, ‘There can be no doubt that the drawing represents one of the most romantic and tropical scenes encountered during the voyage’. $8500 Beddie, 1869 (examples of this issue in an album in the Dixson Library); Hill, 1836-7 (Webber’s published views); Joppien & Smith, 3.120Ac.

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10.

DE WIT, Frederick.

Tabula Indiæ Orientalis Emendata a F. de Wit.

Engraved map, 460 x 560 mm., superb handcolouring; mounted. Amsterdam, circa 1680.

Tasman map by Blaeu’s apprentice

Fine early map of the East Indies showing the discoveries of Tasman by Frederick de Wit, at a time when he was one of the foremost map-makers in Holland. His firm’s ‘maps were distinguished by their excellent craftsmanship, exactness and beauty…’ (Schilder).

This map stretches from Persia in the west to China and Taiwan in the east, and shows northern “Hollandia Nova”, bearing three significant place names: “Van Diemens Landt”; “Baya van Diemen” and “Vuyle hoeck” (the last a disparaging term meaning something like “rotten corner” and evidently relating to the inhospitable coastline). All of these relate to Abel Tasman’s second voyage of 1644.

‘Frederick de Wit, an apprentice of William Blaeu… became one of the most prominent and successful map engravers and publishers in Amsterdam following the decline of the Blaeu and Jansson establishments. His work, notable for the beauty of the engraving and colouring, was very popular and editions were issued many years after his death…’ (Parry, The Cartography of the East Indian Oceans, p. 118).

The map is handcoloured in outline and decorated by a beautiful cartouche showing four dramatically-posed costumed figures of the East. $5850 not in Tooley; Parry, The Cartography of the East Indian Islands, plate 4.29.

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11.

DIBDIN, Charles.

The Sea Songs of Charles Dibdin…

Tall quarto, copperplate engraved music and text;; contemporary half calf, a very handsome copy, the spine gilt and with an unusual triple “harlequin” set of labels in red, white & blue.

London, G. and W.B. Whittaker, 1823.

The solace of sailors by the author of "A Trip to the Antipodes"

First edition of this early collection of the patriotic ditties and rollicking shanties of the British navy: a fascinating and important record of the conditions of the Georgian sailor.

Many of the songs had a lasting influence on the spirit of the navy, especially during the protracted war with France. Each is present in an engraved musical score with lyrics.

The collection was authored by the prolific Charles Dibdin (1745-1815). His son Thomas, in a brief biographical notice appended to the 1850 collective edition of his father’s sea-songs, remarked: ‘These songs have been the solace of sailors in long voyages, in storms, in battles; and they have been quoted in mutinies to the restoration of order and discipline’. Readers may be surprised to learn that many take “Grog” or trouncing the French as their theme.

Bringing out his first two-act opera when he was only sixteen, Dibdin had a long career as an actor and singer, and worked briefly with David Garrick. A seemingly inexhaustible writer, he composed some one thousand songs during his career and was also a sometime playwright, self-publishing Great News or A Trip to the Antipodes in 1794. For a complete list of the dramatist-composer’s published and unpublished plays, musical entertainments and compositions see E.R. Dibdin, A Dibdin Bibliography (Liverpool, 1937). Dibdin was not much of a sailor himself: in 1788 he sailed for the East Indies, but inclement weather forced the ship back to port at Torbay. He took it as a sign and returned to London.

This book neatly demonstrates the difficulty of producing a book with a letterpress introduction and engraved plates throughout: several numbers are omitted from the series and, conversely, three listed songs are not included. This is, nonetheless, the standard collation of the book with ninety-five (rather than ninety-nine) songs. $2650

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12.

FREZIER, Monsieur.

A Voyage to the South-Sea, and along the Coasts of Chili and Peru…

Quarto, with 22 maps and plans and 15 engraved plates and views; in contemporary calf, gilt, spine gilt in compartments with double labels. London, Jonah Bowyer, 1717.

Frezier on the Pacific coast of South America with a postscript by Halley

Rare: the first English edition, with a new postscript by Edmund Halley dealing with South American navigation. Frézier sailed under the Horn to reach the west coast of South America, and his description and maps (especially those of the west coast anchorages) were much used by later navigators. He gives good descriptions of Chile and Peru.

One of his odder claims to fame is that he introduced the strawberry to Europe from Chile. It is illustrated here.

‘Frézier, a French royal military engineer, was under contract to sail to the Spanish possessions in South America to construct forts for defence against English and Dutch attacks. The French government also ordered him to chart the western coast of South America in order that they would have some knowledge of that area for possible military operations. The first part of the book gives an interesting account of the voyage from France around Cape Horn and was used by contemporary and even by later navigators.

The second part relates to the voyage along the coasts of Chile and Peru, describing the chief towns and cities. Frézier, a man of observation, brought back information of considerable geographical and scientific value. Much data is included about the native inhabitants… The first English translation contains the same engravings as the original, but is preferred to the latter because it contains a postscript by Edmund Halley (of comet fame) which corrects certain geographical errors…’ (Hill). $5500 Borba de Moraes, p. 329; Hill, 654; James Ford Bell, F1240.

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[HAWAII: CARICATURE] FORES, S.W. (publisher).

13.

Robeing Royalty, a treat for the Sandwichers…

Etching with original handcolour, 235 x 330 mm.; in a recent archival mount.

London, S. W. Fores, June 16, 1824.

Contemporary cartoon of the Hawaiian royals in London

Very rare caricature of the Hawaiian royal family, published during their visit to London in 1824.

Kamehameha II, as the name has since become standardised, or Liholiho Iolani as he was also known, was the son of the famous Kamehameha the Great and reigned in Hawaii from 1819. From the earliest days of his reign there was enormous change in the traditional ways of life, and he is generally seen as having personally begun the unravelling of the kapu system.

On 27 November 1823, five years after taking his throne, Kamehameha and Queen Kamamalu set sail for London aboard the English whaler L’Aigle.

After arriving almost unnoticed, news of the Royal visitors quickly spread, and they were lavishly entertained and attracted great attention in London, helped by the regal bearing of the Queen who was six foot seven inches tall.

They visited Westminster Abbey and attended the theatre in Drury Lane where, by royal command, they occupied the royal box.

Tragically, everyone in Kamehameha’s party came down with measles, for which the Hawaiians had no immunity. Queen Kamamalu died in London on 8 July 1824, a heartbroken Kamehameha a few days later. Their bodies were returned to Hawai’i for burial by HMS Blonde whose captain, George Byron, was a cousin of the poet.

Although many contemporary depictions of the visit dwelt on the elegant deportment and sophistication of the Hawaiian entourage, there was another side to London’s fascination with the Hawaiian royals, as this rare caricature attests. On the one hand, there were the graceful portraits; on the other a ruthless satire of their adoption of western dress. Both styles, of course, tend towards caricature, but such cartoons are a distinctive part of the rich visual history of their visit, and testament to the depth of public fascination with Hawaii and the South Seas.

Another coloured example of this print is in the collection of the National Library of Australia (see http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an6589575). $10,500 Nan Kivell & Spence, Portraits of the Famous and Infamous, illus p.5 (coloured version), p.33 &. p.212.

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14.

JARDINE, Sir William.

The Naturalist’s Library.

Complete set of 40 volumes, small octavo, each volume with portrait frontispiece & engraved and printed title-page to each volume, and some 1248 handcoloured engraved plates (see note below), making a total of 1328 plates; in a fine nineteenth-century half calf binding, banded spines with double crimson and green labels. Edinburgh, Lizars; and London, Bohn, 1835 to 1866.

A “complete” natural history, beautifully illustrated

An attractive well-bound set of this mid nineteenth-century natural history encyclopaedia. Each volume also features a frontispiece and introduction devoted to the life of an eminent naturalist, with good biographies for example of Sir Joseph Banks and François Péron, as well as John Ray, Thomas Pennant and Thomas Bewick. The Naturalist’s Library was an immensely successful publication, and offered the general public a beautiful and informative encyclopaedia of the natural world. Jardine wrote 15 of the volumes himself, and contributed many of the biographical introductions in the series. The work is renowned for the quality of the steel engravings by William Home Lizars, Jardine’s brother-inlaw.

Jardine’s Library includes a rich representation of Australasian species, with one volume entirely devoted to Australian fauna, and including 30 plates depicting possums, marsupials, kangaroos, native mice, koalas, platypus and the now extinct Tasmanian Tiger. Descriptions and illustrations of other Australian species are scattered throughout the entire work, for example a volume devoted to dogs includes the ‘New Holland Dingo’ with a striking coloured plate alongside a fine engraving of the skull of the dingo compared to that of a jackal. In particular, the fourteen volumes of the series devoted to birds are well stocked with Australian species, and are especially good on parrots, with splendid illustrations of cockatoos, galahs and lorikeets.

Complete sets of this work are uncommon; Ferguson, for example, records only scattered volumes from the series (see 2314a, 3622b, 2766b, etc.). Like other examples, this set is composed of a mixture of volumes from the original Edinburgh edition and the London Bohn version, so spans some thirty years. As often, some of the plates do not exactly correspond to contents leaves, occasionally having too many and other times too few as against the printed contents in each volume: this set contains altogether 1328 plates of a possible 1327 (according to the contents pages) or more likely 1330 (this figure including a frontispiece and engraved title to each volume). $9850

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15.

THORNTON, Robert.

Temple of Flora…

Large quarto (in twos) measuring 376 x 303 mm., with a total of 29 handcoloured aquatint plates including the frontispiece, two uncoloured engraved plates and two engraved title-page leaves; a fine copy in contemporary full straight-grained crimson morocco, ornate gilt tooled borders and spine ornament. London, Robert Thornton, 1812.

‘The most unconventional flower book ever published’

The greatest botanical book of the romantic era, and ‘probably the most unconventional flower book ever published’ (Tomasi). The Temple of Flora was the extraordinary invention of physician Robert Thornton (1768–1837) who ran a private practise and lectured on medical botany at two London hospitals. It is a visual tour-de-force, featuring individual flower portraits in moody and evocative settings. Arresting and irresistible, the 29 plates are ‘the most overtly dramatic in the history of botany’ (ODB). This is an example of the so-called “Lottery edition”, produced by Thornton in 1812 as one of the series of prizes in the lottery designed to save him from bankruptcy.

This edition follows the earlier large folio version which began publishing in parts in 1799 under the title New Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus. The ambitious project was aptly renamed Temple of Flora in 1804. The first edition was in a very large format: this subsequent edition, which contains an additional plate (the “Artichoke Protea”), appeared as a more manageable large quarto (in fact technically made up as a folio) with engraved title pages dated 1812.

The stupendous price of 20 guineas when the series of plates with text was first offered for sale reflected the exorbitant cost of production. Each flower portrait began as an oil painting commissioned from leading artists of the era; the paintings were in due course rendered as magnificent aquatints by Stadler and Sutherland. Although the retinue of artists included great names such as John Russell and Sir William Beechey, Thornton favoured the work of professional botanical illustrators Peter Henderson and Philip Reinagle who contributed the majority of images to the Temple of Flora. Not surprisingly, Thornton’s ambitious and eccentric publishing project destroyed him financially. Not even the public lottery ordained by Act of Parliament, wherein the winner claimed the suite of original artworks, could save him from ruin. The first prize in the lottery was original artworks, the second enhanced sets of the first edition; the third series of prizes was 200 sets of coloured plates, while the fourth series of prizes were copies of this quarto edition.

The text is really curious to modern sensibilities, combining scientific botany with a seemingly disparate range of emotional, spiritual and political themes, all generously interspersed with poetry from ancient and contemporary sources. For Thornton, flowers not only manifested divine perfection but represented an ideal of earthly love and purity which could – and should – be emulated in human affairs. It was a universalising vision of material abundance derived from the plants of the earth and trade in their products, ultimately intended to eclipse human strife and conflict. The dream of peace through botanical curiosity is remarkably idealistic given the atmosphere of the times: Thornton’s publishing career was overshadowed by the Napoleonic wars in Europe. $28,750 Great Flower Books, 77; Nissen, 1955; Tomasi, An Oak Spring Flora, 93.

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Hordern House Rare Books Level 2, 255 Riley Street Surry Hills Sydney, NSW 2010 Australia PO Box 588, Darlinghurst NSW 1300 Australia Hordern House Rare Books Pty. Ltd. ACN 050 963 669 www.hordern.com rare@hordern.com Telephone: +61 2 9356 4411