Wild Flowers Month by Month in their Natural Haunts. Vol. 1-2

Description:

First edition. First edition of Step’s attractive seasonal survey of British wild flowers, arranged month by month and according to their natural habitats rather than simply by botanical classification. Edward Step (1855-1931) was a prolific British naturalist and popular writer, best known for his accessible works on British plants, insects and other wildlife, many published by Frederick Warne.

The present work is particularly notable for its extensive photographic illustration: the author took the photographs himself in the field, a considerable technical achievement at the beginning of the twentieth century. Step explicitly set out his purpose: “We propose in the following pages to take the reader botanising with the camera”, combining practical field botany with the relatively new possibilities of natural-history photography. He was well aware of the technical difficulties involved, warning that “the possessor of a hand-camera cannot hope to accomplish much in the direction of flower-photography”, and stressing that “Colour corrected plates ... are absolutely necessary.”

The result is an unusually immediate record of British plants in their natural surroundings, rather than specimens photographed or illustrated in isolation. This emphasis on photographing flowers in situ, under field conditions, gives the work particular interest in the history of both popular botany and early natural-history photography, and makes Step’s extensive series of images all the more remarkable.

The work appears to have been issued in two forms in 1905. The present copy contains two colour frontispieces, one to each volume, as called for in contemporary descriptions. A second 1905 issue is also known containing twelve colour plates, six in each volume, by Thomas Baddeley.

Condition

2 vols bound in 1, 8vo, cont. half morocco, rubbed/worn, raised bands to spine, marbled endpapers + edges. Some foxing. Good. With bookplate of British lepidopterist, Paul Sokoloff. Also with later small address label of British coleopterist, Robert Angus.