Paris: Désirée Eymery, 1838. First edition. “8vo (17 x 10 cm); (vi) + 322 pp. with text illustration + engraved frontispiece + 2 engraved plates... Alida de Savignac’s LA JEUNE PROPRIÉTAIRE OU L’ART DE VIVRE (1837) is a novel-cum-handbook advising on the multiple aspects of running a country house...” (Finch, Alison. WOMEN’S WRITING IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE, p. 79). This is the story of how the fictional Olympe de Saint-Julien, a young woman accustomed to delicate activities such as dance and music, but, also, a child of the revolution, regains her nearly ruined family estate through the efforts of a guardian relative, and then learns how to run the rural property on her own. She agrees to study the popular manual LA MAISON RUSTIQUE and then proceeds to tackle the reclamation of the house, garden, and farm, transforming decaying structures into stables, granges, poultry houses, etc. Her new plans and those advised by her guardian include making water courses to help in the creation of a fish pond, the planting of fruit and ornamental trees, and designing appropriate arrangements of the house and its rooms (the kitchen being most important). Providing supplies of medicines for the care of her workers was essential. Olympe’s guardian also offers instruction on the milk house, the poultry yard, the pigeon house, and the sheep hold. All of this is discussed in great detail and with an eye to profitabllity. There must be a vegetable greenhouse, a fruitier, and a grand shed for gardening and agricultural tools, as well as carpentry shop equipment. Eventually, Olympe rises at six each morning to survey the operations of the farm. She teaches local children and dispenses medicine. Nor is the ornamental garden neglected, with green lawns and roses planted in front of the chateau. Politics and romance play their part in the story and two tales, LES JUMELLES and LA FÊTE de SAINTE-CATHERINE, are added as lessons. Written by a woman and published by another - Désirée Eymery - who published the series Bibliothèque de l’éducation - this is a strong example of literature produced in early 19th century France encouraging women to seek empowerment. In the U.S. we locate only one copy of a later 1853 edition, and five other various editions located in France. “Olympe fermière, dame de château, maîtresse d’école et médecin” 8vo (17x10cm); (vi) + 322 pp.k with text illustration + engraved frontispiece + 2 engraved plates.

(Santa Rosa): (The Luther Burbank Society), n.d. ca. 1913. A booklet invitation to join The Luther Burbank Society issued for the Society by its Secretary, Robert John. This also serves as a prospectus for the twelve volume set, LUTHER BURBANK: HIS METHODS AND DISCOVERIES AND THEIR PRACTICAL APPLICATION. Accompanying the pamphlet is a ca 1915 postcard showing the Luther Burbank display at the Gravenstein Apple Show held in Sebastopol. George Brittain, superintendent of Burbank’s Experimental grounds, is pictured in the postcard. Brittain is also featured in 6 of 7 original photos which accompany this pamphlet. The shots, described by penned notes on the back of each photo, are taken at the Burbank Experimental grounds. They range from Brittain’s arm displaying an 18 month old everbearing chestnut, Brittain with a large “Thornless Cactus,” to his working on grafting cherry trees. The final photo is of a “helper” in period dress with his grafting tools. With 7 Original photographs and a contemporary postcard. Small pamphlet, 15 x 12 cm; 24 pp. + 6 plates from photographs + final fold-out color photograph plate;WITH: 1 postcard and 7 original photographs measuring from 8 x 5.5.cm to 14 x 8 cm.

PARIS: Mme, Vve. Louis Janet, n.d. (1852). First edition. Combining the talents of French childrens’ books author Louise Leneveux, born Marie-Louise Pignot (1797-18960), and the remarkable French artist, printer, and book illustrator, Amédée Varin (1818-1883), this charming publication brings the amusement and panache of anthropomorphic design to a sweet and modest book instructing children about insects. Varin is now much admired for his transformative interpretations of butterflies and vegetables in 19th century book illustration (see PAPILLONS METAMORPHOSES, 1852 and L’EMPIRE DE LÉGUMES, 1851). For our LES PETITS HABITANTS DES FLEURS, the colour illustration of the butterfly writing his memoires using an overturned rose blossom as a desk sets the character of the book. Here, Vavin’s amusing colour plates (for example ants building a shed and silkworms busy spinning) are engraved by Lejeune. The lithography is by Godard. Leneveux brought a similar spirit of transformed nature to her LES FLEURS PARLANTS (1845) and LES ANIMAUX PARLANTS (1845). Gumachian 373 ( in a different binding); Cotsen No. 27283, Cotsen Catalogue 3470. We have located 4 copies in the U.S.; 3 in France; 1 in the Netherlands; and 1 in the V&A through OCLC. A scarce little book. “Les insectes musiciens, les fourmis maconne....” 12mo (x) + 252 pp. + decorative frontispiece in colour + 11 full page additional colour plates, highlighted by hand colouring. Decorative printed initials and printers ornaments.

(mostly) Rochester: various publishers, late 19th, early 20th centuries. A small unbound sampling of seven American nurserymen’s color plates, mostly from diverse Rochester, N.Y. printers. These plates, demonstrating both chromolithography and stencil or theorem color production, were produced mostly in Rochester, New York, in the second half of the 19th, and beginning of the 20th centuries, to assist and/or accompany” tree pedlars” or nurserymen and nursery salesmen in promoting the sales of the area’s booming nursery business. As described in Karl Sanford Kabelac’s “Nineteenth-Century Rochester Fruit and Flower Plates” ( Vol. XXXV, 1982 Univ.of Rochester Library Bulletin), salesmen were able to buy these plates in individual assortments or bound, sometimes mixing printers depending upon their needs. Here we have three chromolithographs - a Crawford’s Late Peach, an Early Canada Peach, and a Dickinson apple - by Stecher Lithographic Co. and its earlier incarnation, Mensing & Stecher. These would have been printed after 1878, with the Crawford’s Late produced in the late 1880s by Stecher alone. Kabelac identifies Franck A. Stecher as “a leader in the chromolithographic industry in Rochester.” The other four plates appear to be stencil or theorems, possibly with some color lithographed detail. The only one with an identified printer is the Dutchman’s Pipe “drawn and colored from Nature by C.M. Search” a horticultural painter as well as a fruit plate producer from the 1880s. Many of these plates were bound into portfolios or book albums and their owner/salesmen were encouraged to keep the plates as clean of thumb-soiling as possible after showing them to their fruit and flower buying clients. The plates could also be replaced in some of the portfolios. This grouping provides an interesting little study of the various methods of impressing the public with the color available from the nurserymen’s offerings. Seven plates, each measuring approximately 7.4 x 4.4 inches or 19 x 11 cm.; printed on one side only.

Springfield, Ohio: (Mast, Foos & Co.), n.d. An amusing late 19th century American set of square advertising cards held together by a grommet at the upper right corners enabling the reader to go through an illustrated “story”. In a progression from “Admiration” through “Flirtation,” “Tribulation” to “Termination,” a little outdoor garden romance takes place in the four scenes with a lady mowing a lawn attracting a gentleman pumping water (with a wind turbine in the background) and ending up with the two embracing at a decorative iron gate. On the “versos” of the chromolithographed scenes are advertisements for Mast, Foos & Co.’s wind engine Buckeye iron fence, Buckeye junior lawnmower, and Buckeye force pump. Get out there and create your garden with the latest enhancements and equipment! Watch out for the cat’s tail while mowing the lawn Four cards, 6.2 x 6.2 cm each, held together by a grommet at upper right corner.

n.p: 2002. A dated album containing amateur colour photographs of COBRA artist Asger Jorn’s house exterior and garden at Albisolla in Italy. One of the photos shows the smiling COBRA-inspired Cuban artist Gina Pellon on the site. Jorn was a Danish artist who co-founded the avant-garde COBRA movement and was fundamental in the Situationist International Movement. Among many other things, Jorn was a ceramicist as is evident in the photos shown here around his Italian residence. Jorn evidently used ceramic fragments from local factories in his murals and sculptural objects. His house and garden in Albisolla on the Italian Riviera was both a refuge and the site of creativity for him in the post-War years. At his death, the villa went to the local municipality, which has slowly brought it back to life. At the time of this photo album the work was still in progress. Unique. With a photo of Gina Pellon at Albisolla. Each color photograph measures approximately 10 x 25 cm and is enclosed in a standard black paper- backed plastic pocket.

London: (J. Jones), ca. 1860. An elegant little catalogue with its title printed in a variety of typeface, fancy and plain, and with detailed engraved illustrations in the text. As stated by the manufacturer, this catalogue of cast-iron garden ornaments accompanied Jones’s larger general catalogue. He praises the durability of his cast-iron over stone, cement, wood, etc. He also notes that his seats, chairs, and stairs can be easily assembled and reassembled. Shown are two vases with pedestals, two tables (rustic and stool), an ornamental chair, a rustic bench, glass frame and garden roller. Each item is priced, measurements are given, and, where applicable, different sizes and finishes are noted. We have not located this item in OCLC. Pamphlet “4to” ( 21.2 x 13.5 cm) sewn, with additional sewing marks visible; 8 ff. with 8 engraved illlustrations.

Paris: Auguste Ghio, n.d., ca. 1865. Illustrated with eight amusing and lovely two-toned lithographed plates of animated flowers. Six of the plates depict people transformed into flowers, with four examples on each plate. The other two plates depict scenes with an Enchanteur or Magician and human beings at the beginning and end of this fantastic tale. The story is loosely based on a variation of the German Faustus the Enchanteur legend, but it is the artistic treatment of the personified flowers that is of interest here. The flower bodies with human heads are similar to Grandville’s illustrations for LES FLEURS ANIMÉES of 1847, but here they are more defined as flowers. The artist’s signature on many of the plates is “Bertrand”; the printer is Becquet, Paris. The author was Rosine de La Salle Theodore Midy who wrote quite a number of works for children, including LA BOTANIQUE ILLUSTRÉE DE LA JEUNESSE and L’ALPHABET. The book is bound in printed floral paper covers with rusticated borders, signed L. Poguet. The covers also bear the name of the publisher Auguste Ghio, Palais-Royal. We find one copy with a different publisher (A. Courcier) at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Tolbiac; another copy is identified, but not located, in OCLC with a Library of Education publisher. Theodore Rosine de la Salle Midy was also published by Library of Education and A. Courcier - this is likely the same person. A very scarce Romantic floral fantasy. In the Style of Grandville 4to (30 x 22 cm.); 54 + (ii) pp. + 8 lithographed plates in two tints.

Paris: J. Rothschild, 1870. The four large hand-colored folding plates to Siebeck’s third French edition, translated from the German by J. Rothchild. These four plates - in this example, linen-backed into two - form a stunning and very large colored lithographed image 72 x 54 inches wide, that is most often missing from this third Parisian edition. Siebeck, director of public parks and gardens for the city of Vienna, had considerable success with his park and garden plans, and with his writing; in addition to his German publications, his work was translated into French and English (Joseph Newton's PICTURESQUE GARDEN PLANS, 1864; THE LANDSCAPE GARDENER, 1876; and R.H. Westley's ELEMENTS OF THE ART OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING, 1861). This enormous plan accompanied the combination of two titles which had originally appeared separately: ELEMENTS D'HORTICULTURE OU JARDINS PITTORESQUES... and GUIDE PRATIQUE DU JARDINIER-PPAYSAGISTE. The former was issued with the four plates that combined to form one very large plan, and the latter with the 24 separate plates. These would correspond with the original German editions, DIE ELEMENTE DE LANDSCHAFTSGARTENKUNST IN EINEM PLANE DARGESTELLT...Leipzig, 1861, and IDEEN ZU KLEINEN GARTEN-ANLAGEN AUF VIERUNDZWANZIG COLORITEN PLANEN. Leipzig (1857-) 60. sEE gANAY 269, 3RD EDITION, 1870 for a complete explanation. The large hand-colored plan, composed of four folding plates, shows the outline of buildings, a long body of flowing water which forms a lake at one point, and several winding roads or paths interrupted by structures and lined with carefully placed individual or massed deciduous and coniferous trees. Rare and striking. Yes, that enormous plan. See Dochnahl p. 149 for earlier German editions. Loose, as issued, in printed portfolios (50 x 37 cm); 4 folding hand-colored lithographed plates, linen-backed into two larger plates in this copy.

Paris: Chez Pissot, 1776. First edition of the most substantial and popular original French work to advocate the natural landscape style of gardening in France. Morel never visited England, thus his ideas followed more directly from French examples (including his own gardens); nevertheless, he also drew inspiration from the published theories of Whately and Watelet and from the influence of his close association with Girardin at Ermenonville. Morel trained as an architect and geographical engineer, but his long career was focused almost entirely on garden design. He worked on at least 50 parks and gardens, including: Guiscard, Ermenonville, Casson, Launay, and La Malmaison. Extensive descriptions of Guiscard and Ermenonville are used here as examples to illustrate his ideas, although his account of Ermenonville claims more personal credit for its design than is appropriately due. But however significant Morel's activities as a creator of gardens may have been, it was as the pre-eminent theorist of natural garden design that he had the greatest impact. Of all French gardeners of the picturesque school, he stood furthest from the fashionable and decorative anglo-chinois aspects of garden design and advocated a style more purely imitative of nature. As such, his ideas were far more influential on the later "style paysagiste" than those of his contemporaries, and in many respects formed the (often unacknowledged) theoretical foundation for much of French garden design throughout the 19th century. The pre-eminent French theorist of natural garden design of his time. Ganay 98; Berlin Cat. 3469; Musset-Pathay 1822. 8vo (18 x 12cm); (viii) + 397 + (3) pp.; page 140 misnumbered p. 148.

Bruxelles: 1849. First and apparently only edition. With an engraved frontispiece of a view taken from within the park looking towards the Palais de la Nation designed by Gilles-Barnabé Guimard who, together with Joachim Zinner, provided the overall plans for the park and Place Royal in the 18th century. The four “chants” of the poem evoke events and people in the region’s history through encounters with the park’s sculptures of classical and historical figures, its structures, etc. Of particular interest for Schoonen’s 28 pages of notes which provide detailed descriptions of the park, its plantings, layout, views and associated history. Scarce. In OCLC we locate only one copy at Utrecht and one at Vlaamse Erfgredbibliotheek. 8vo (17.2 x 12.5 cm); engraved frontispiece +92 pp with 2 tailpieces + 1 engraved plate.

Leipzig: in de Schäferschen buchhandlung, 1803. A rare horticultural manual by Johann Heinrich Seidel, widely regarded as the "Father of Dresdener Horticulture." After completing his apprenticeship at the Großer Garten in Dresden in 1764, he embarked on a seven-year Gesellenwanderung though Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, England and France. During his travels he spent significant time at Het Loo, the Jardin des Plantes, Chiswick, and Kew while building important contacts with head gardeners throughout Europe. After returning to Dresden and taking over as court gardener, Seidel used those contacts to build one of the most important plant collections of its day, reaching 4300 species by 1806. Many of the choicest of these plants are described in the text. Seidel was one of the first German gardeners to breed camellias, but he also had a particular interest in Chinese dwarf plants and devoted an entire short chapter at the end of the book to promoting their interest. The colour frontispiece shows a Chinese gardener carrying several potted dwarf shrubs and fruit trees balanced on a pole across his shoulder. The name F. G. Leonhardi also appears on the title page, but Leonhardi was an economist and historian who wrote books on a variety of subjects. He is unlikely to have made much contribution to the horticultural content of the work. It is surprisingly rare. OCLC locates only 4 copies, of which three in Germany and one in Denmark. KVK adds one more. By Johann Heinrich Seidel, the “Father of Dresdener Horticulture” 16mo (17.2 x 10.3 cm); viii + 259 + (4) pp. + colour frontispiece and 2 engraved plates.

Knutsford: 1868. A wonderful picture of the rigour demanded in mid-nineteenth century local English horticultural shows. Following the list of various officers and dignitaries come the rules, followed by the various exhibition categories. For professional gardeners there are 30 classes of entry. These range from caladiums to hollyhocks, cut roses to miniature gardens for 1st and 2nd prizes (20/- the highest, being for stove or greenhouse plants in bloom.) For the amateurs, another 18 classes from ferns, foliaged geraniums, pansies, round hand bouquets to British wild plants improved for garden decoration. The highest award here for ferns, at 10/-). Classes open to all are dishes of fruits (25 varieties). The largest category with 60 classes is for Cottagers with displays ranging from best box hive of bees to the “best regulated, neatest, and most productive Cottage Garden, within three miles of Knutsford Parish Church, to be inspected twice during the season ”. This latter gets the top prize of 20/-. There is a small category for florists and nurserymen from any distance. With a two page list of subscribers, a full list of committee members, patrons and officers and two pages of very strict rules. We have not located this item in OCLC, COPAC or the Lindley Library, RHS. Stitched pamphlet, 12 mo (17 x 10.4 cm); (xii) pp. including subscribers’ list and balance sheet.

n.p: N.P, n.d. (ca. 1900?). A somewhat mysterious piece on art vellum having the appearance of a mailing or shipping label, but, surely being an elaborate mock-up for one or the other. “The design is signed in a monogram for “R H sc”. The sender’s address is “ Clos de la Garoupe/ Cap d’Antibes/ Alpes-Maritimes. “ in decorative black lettering. Opposite is the message:” Les Fleurs sont expédiées aussitôt qu’elles sont coupées.” Below this is an address space beginning with a decorative “M” and below, “Spécialité d’Anémones /et de la Fraises. This text is arranged in the upper diagonal space of the piece. In the lower diagonal is a splendid design of a young woman holding strawberries and surrounded by anemones. This illustration is enhanced in green, gray and rose. The Cap d’Antibes was a strong horticultural region in the 19th century. Clos de la Garoupe was once a farm ( or nursery?) before Antibes became the playground of the rich. Flowers from Cap d’Antibes. Impression 17 x 23.5 on sheet measuring 28 x 35 cm. With custom matting.