English Botanical Book Found in Colonial Virginia

TOURNEFORT, Joseph.  THE COMPLEAT HERBAL.  Two volumes.

London: R. Bonwicke, and others, 1719 and 1730. London: J. Walthoe, and others, 1730. 4to. Later quarter-calf. (ii), 4, 3-6, 1-625, (1) pages, 132 plates numbered 1-7, (1, unnumbered) 9-14, 16-22, 22-49, 50/51 (on one plate), 52, 52-53, 65-71, 71-80, 80-83, 84/85 (on one plate), 86-143 (lacking plate 127); (ii), 4, 649, (11) pages, 134 plates numbered 143-277 (lacking plates 151, 162, 204, 254). First English language edition. [Henrey, 1432].

Tournefort's The Compleat Herbal was one of the earliest English botanical books to be issued in fascicles.  Issues of these parts were erratic, at best, the entire project taking fourteen years to complete.  In Virginia, both William Byrd and Thomas Jefferson owned copies of the earlier French edition.  Byrd's copy was annotated on virtually every leaf.  Until Linneaus, Tournefort's plant classification was considered to be the standard.  American plants are noted, with a separate listings for newly discovered ones, including long descriptions of tobacco and cotton.  The English language edition was greatly enlarged, adding data from Ray, Gerard, Parkinson, and others.  This English edition also has indices not found in the French.  Blanche Henrey notes variations in the number of plates in the copies she collated.  For her bibliography, she used the most complete set, that at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.  Our copy lacks four plates listed by her, and has a duplicate of Plate XVI from Volume I.  Some slight, sporadic browning to leaves, else a nice copy in later matching bindings.

$4,500.00