Ocean Flowers and their Teachings

Description:

First edition. Illustrated with mounted specimens; frontis printed in sepia with a basket of mounted seaweed fronds; plates each with one or several mounted speciems of seaweeds, zoophytes, corallines, etc. (a few with minor breakages or loss). Correction slip tipped in following p. 146.

A rare and beautiful example of a luxurious mid-nineteenth century seaweed gift-book. Duggins (2017) states of this work ‘such gift-books were ultimately commodities, hybrid creations that combined mounted naturalia with illustrations and letterpress. Costly and time-consuming to make, they were produced in limited numbers and circulated within a culture of gift giving and exchange. … Howard incorporates excerpts of poetry by Lord Byron, William Wordsworth and George Crabbe extolling the romantic sublime of the sea with technical commentary of John Herschel and William Jackson Hooker.’

A contemporary review of the book in the Worcester Herald referred to it as ‘a perfect gem of art and nature.’

An advertisement states that the work was originally available for purchase in three states, the least expensive bound in silk (£1 11s.6d.), the next in velvet (£1 15s.) and the most expensive in morocco (£1 17s.), the latter being offered here.

Duggins, M. 2017, 'Pacific Ocean Flowers: Colonial Seaweed Albums', In: The Sea and Nineteenth-Century Anglophone Literary Culture, S. Mentz, M.E. Rojas (Eds).

Freeman 1791.

Condition

8vo, orig. full red morocco, richly gilt dec., gilt inner dentelles, all edges gilt. Handsomely bound by Astle & Sons. Occasional light spotting and offsetting from specimens to facing text leaf. Fine copy.