An Introduction to Botany, in a Series of Familiar Letters

Description:

3rd edition. Priscilla Wakefield [née Bell] (1750–1832) was an author and philanthropist. She wrote seventeen books, principally moral tales, introductory works of natural history, and travelogues. Wakefield's published works on natural history are part of the Enlightenment history of disseminating science to new audiences. 'An Introduction to Botany', first published in 1796, is an account of Linnaean botany in the form of letters between sisters. This work ran to eleven editions by 1841, and was also published in America and translated into French. (ODNB)

Condition

12mo, cont. half calf, marbled boards, rubbed/corners worn. Cont. ink annotations to folding table and one page. Vg. From the library of John C. Colquhoun with his book plate to endpaper. J. Colquhoun (1805-1885), writer on sports, and lover of the Scotland's natural history. In his passion for the Scottish highlands' flora and endgagered fauna, he confessed to ‘having sunk the sportsman in the “amateur naturalist”’ (Colquhoun, 'The Moor and the Loch', preface to 3rd edn, 1851). During his life he visited nearly every district of Scotland, so that his opportunities for observation were especially favourable. In 1840 he embodied his experiences in 'The Moor and the Loch', which speedily took a high rank among books on Scottish sport. The fourth edition (1878) contained many additions, notably the most valuable portions of some other books written in the meantime: 'Rocks and Rivers' (1849); 'Salmon Casts and Stray Shots' (1858); and 'Sporting Days' (1866). The fifth edition (1880) added an autobiographical preface; two more editions followed by 1888. Besides these works Colquhoun wrote two lectures, ‘On the feræ naturæ of the British islands’ (deploring the extinction of Scottish species due to ‘improvement’), and ‘On instinct and reason’, which were published in 1873 and 1874 respectively. (ODNB)