Cagoule

1855 · réf. 140948287 — London: Lowell Reeve 1855. First Edition. Near Fine. First edition first printing. Color lithographic title page plus 24 handcolored lithographic plates highlighted in gum arabic protected by tissue guards and accompanied by text descriptions. Folio bound in full green morocco with ornate gold tooling to spine borders and turn-ins all edges gilt teal endpapers. Near Fine with moderate scuffing and staining to leather. Hinges repaired 20th century bookplate to front pastedown. Light foxing to prelims and occasionally throughout light thumbing throughout pencil inscriptions to upper right corner of title page and lower left of plate XV. Minimal bleedthrough from plate watercolors. Binding sound colors bright and beautiful. Sitwell p. 101. A landmark botanical work published by subscription with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert heading the list of subscribers. The Rajah of Burdwan reserved one copy as did Cambridge University and the Royal Library of Berlin. The East India Company ordered thirty. The lithographs were executed by the legendary botanical illustrator Walter Hood Fitch who for decades was the sole draftsman and lithographer used by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Fitch adapted drawings by the botanist Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker and by Indian artists working under the direction of J.F. Cathcart. Hooker had traveled through central and eastern Himalaya from 1847 to 1849 collecting around 7000 species of plants on the journey. His Rhododendrons of the Sikkim-Himalaya 1849-51 began a rhododendron craze among British gardeners and was also illustrated by the skilled hand of Fitch. Hooker was appointed director of Kew Gardens in 1865 and held the post for twenty years. As a close friend of Charles Darwin he had the distinction of being the first audience for Darwin's theory of natural selection. The bookplate in this copy is that of Dr. Paul Jay Bowman 1893 - 1985 a charter member of the American Rhododendron Society. Bowman was drawn to northern California by its rhododendrons and ran the Redwood Coast Hospital in Fort Bragg for over forty years. A lovely book with a nice provenance. Lowell Reeve unknown books