Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Plates bright and vivid. No notes or highlighting. Dustcover has some wear and tear. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Thornton’s Temple of Flora was one of the most splendid folios of flower engravings ever published. Since it appeared in 1807 its fame has grown until a good copy costs hundreds of pounds and individual plates have become collector’s pieces. In 1951 William Collins and George Rainbird issued a folio edition reproducing facsimile twelve of the original thirty-two colour plates and twenty-four monochrome engravings: the colour plates were the choicest. Since the virtue of the 1807 edition was in the engravings a new text was prepared comprising an introduction by Geoffrey Grigson and a bibliography by Handasyde Buchanan. The introduction told for the first time all that could be discovered about Thornton and the curious history of the book – while the account of the bibliography which is exceedingly complicated is indispensable to collectors. (MP)