Horticulture

Third edition, 8vo ( 220 x 135 mm), iv, 139, [9]pp., with index and final errata leaf, title page spotted with occasional spotting to the text, cont. half calf, joints cracked. John Graefer (1746-1802) a German botanist nurseryman born in Helmstedt. Trained by Philip Miller at the Chelsea Physic Garden, London, one of the most prominent botanical gardens of Europe during the 18th century, Graeffer was subsequently gardener to the Earl of Coventry at Croome Court, Worcestershire, which was being landscaped by Capability Brown, and then to James Vere, of Kensington Gore, a founder of the Royal Horticultural Society. Graeffer struck out on his own as a partner with Archibald Thompson and the prominent nurseryman James Gordon in Gordon's long-established Mile End nursery near the New Globe, Stepney, just beyond the East End of London. In the 1790s Graeffer obtained a recommendation from Sir Joseph Banks, to be employed as head gardener to the king of Naples.?Wikipedia. Provenance: Contemporary ownership signature to head of title page "Eliz. Carill Worsley, 1799." Henrey, 764; originally published in 1789 with two further eighteenth-century editions, a second edition also of 1789 and our third - all are rare. ESTC locates 5 UK copies and one in North America of this third edition.