Rose Garden

William PAUL

Item#: 118700 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Rose Garden
Rose Garden
Rose Garden

WITH 20 LOVELY FULL-PAGE COLOR PLATES OF ROSES: “A PRE-EMINENT AUTHORITY FOR 60 YEARS”

PAUL, William. The Rose Garden. London: Kent, [1888]. Large quarto, publisher's full black- and gilt-stamped maroon cloth.

Later revised and expanded edition of this popular compendium of hints on the cultivation of roses by nurseryman William Paul, with 20 lovely full-page color lithographic flower plates by Walter Hood Fitch, 16 additional full-page wood-engravings of roses and 80 in-text garden diagrams and illustrations of technique.

This popular work is not only a compendium of hints on raising roses, but a history of the design of rose gardens and a descriptive catalogue of the "most esteemed varieties." In addition to the 20 full-page chromolithographs by famous flower painter Walter Hood Fitch, it also contains numerous in-text wood-engraved illustrations and diagrams plotting out gardens and demonstrating the nurseryman's professional techniques. Paul's Rose Garden "enjoyed the unique fortune of maintaining a pre-eminent authority for 60 years. It is a practical treatise, to which Paul's wide reading gave a literary character" (DNB). Artist Walter Fitch was discovered by renowned botanist and director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Sir William Jackson Hooker. "Under Hooker's training in botanical draftsmanship, Fitch became one of the greatest British practitioners of that art" (DSB). He contributed to the most important botanical publications of his time, including Curtis' Botanical Magazine (for which he produced over 2,700 plates), the works of Warner, Elwes, and Bentham and the bulletins of Kew Botanical Gardens, where he served as principal artist. Concerned with scientific accuracy, Fitch often worked directly on the lithographic stone. First published in 1848, the Preface to this ninth edition is dated "1888." "Many of the varieties described at the time of the first edition are now withdrawn, because surpassed in excellence by more modern varieties." See Sitwell, Great Flower Books, 124.

Interior generally fine, inner paper hinges and text block expertly repaired; publisher's cloth with only minor rubbing. A lovely copy.

add to my wishlist ask an Expert