[Rarebooks] fa: JOHN EVELYN - SILVA or A DISCOURSE OF FOREST-TREES - Folio 1729

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, April 29. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y93zryy8

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


John Evelyn: Silva: or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty's Dominions: As it was delivered in the Royal Society the 15th of October, 1662, upon Occasion of certain Quaeries propounded to that Illustrious Assembly, by the Honourable and Principal Officers and Commissioners of the Navy. In two books. Together with an Historical Account of the Sacredness and Use of Standing Groves. Terra, a Philosophical Essay of Earth; being a Lecture in Course. To which is annex'd, Pomona: or an Appendix concerning Fruit-Trees, in relation to Cyder; the Making, and several Ways of Ordering it. Publish'd by express Order of the Royal Society. Also Kalendarium Hortense; or, The Gardener's Almanack; Directing what is to do Monthly throughout the Year...The Fifth Edition. London: Printed for J. Walthoe, J. Knapton, D. Midwinter, A. Bettesworth, J. Tonson, W. Innys, R. Robinson, J. Wilford, J. Osborn and T. Longman, B. Motte, A. Ward; and sold also by F. Fayram. MDCCXXIX [1729]. Folio (32.5 cm) in early/period calf, recased and rebacked in later calf with gilt-lettered spine label, later marbled endpapers; [2], xxviii, 329[i.e.335], [1], vi, [4], 235, [5] pp. (as per ESTC, page numbers 211 and 212 are repeated; pp. [275]-[280] are inserted between pp. 274 and 277). Copper-engraved plates and in-text vignettes, woodcut illustrations, head- and tail-pieces and capitals. Henrey 136; ESTC T113852.

A handsome, relatively early edition of this often reprinted horticultural classic by John Evelyn (1620-1706), diarist, dilettante, co-founder of the Royal Society, and one of the great English "virtuosi" of his day. Part of that "community of seventeenth-century intellectuals who aimed to establish a major programme of scientific and technological development, linked with social and economic progress, [Evelyn] emerges as this community's most long-lived and versatile member: scholar, connoisseur, bibliophile and horticulturalist, as well as a writer and thinker of sometimes startlingly current relevance, on everything from forestry, architecture and the formation of a universal library to fashion and air pollution" (British Library). "His Silva practically saved the English navy, in the days of wooden ships, by its advocacy of reforestation" (Kunitz & Haycraft).

Earlier owners' signatures to the title-page (one crossed out); top edge of the text block with some mild toning, dust-soiling and dimpling; a few occasional small stains, spots and traces of soiling to the leaves, otherwise clean, bright and crisp, firmly bound. A very good (or better) copy. Front paste-down with the bookplate of noted English bibliophile Charles Benson.