Garden books in the Special Collections of the Barr Smith Library
Early gardening guides and florilegiums
One of the most prized illustrated
botanical books of the 17th century was the Hortus Floridus of Crispin de Passe first published in Latin in 1614 and in
English in the following year as A Garden of Flowers. Featuring
beautiful copperplate engravings, many from an unusual perspective,
the text simply describes the plants with no attempt at
horticultural or medical instruction. Our 1928 edition with
facsimile engravings is a new translation by Spencer Savage from
the original Latin, and its publication was a triumphal success for
the Cresset Press.
The first English book to discuss at
length the design and cultivation of the pleasure garden was
John Parkinson's
Paradisi in Sole Paradisius
Terrestris, or, A Garden of All Sorts of Pleasant Flowers which our
English Ayre will Permitt to be Noursed Up; with a kitchen
garden ... and an
orchard (London, 1629. Facsimile ed. London: Methuen, 1904).
A gardening book and herbal combined, it gives instructions on how
to set out the flower, kitchen and orchard gardens and is
abundantly illustrated with numerous plant varieties, including
many discovered in explorations to America.
One of the most vivid and
delightful impressions of a garden in the whole of gardening
literature can be found in William
Lawson's A New Orchard and
Garden, first published in 1618, a work of great interest to students of Tudor period
gardens. It included his The
Country Housewifes Garden, the first gardening book
specifically addressed to women, which describes designs for the
planting of herbs and plants. In 1623 Lawson's work was included in
Gervase Markham's encyclopaedic compilation, A Way to get Wealth, which was
reprinted 8 times in the next 70 years. Our edition, printed in
London by William Wilson for George Sawbridge in 1660 is the 3rd
edition, 'corrected and much enlarged'.
After Lawson, very little was
written on the laying out of gardens until the printing in 1665 of
John Rea's Flora: Seu De Florum Cultura, or, A Complete
Florilege: furnished with all requisites belonging to a
florist. Florist was a relatively new word, meaning one who
cultivated flowers or was skilled in the knowledge of flowering
plants, and most of the work (Flores) consists of a long
descriptive list of flowers. Part 2, Ceres, describes flowering
summer annuals and Part 3, Pomona, lists trees, vines and berries,
flowering trees and shrubs. Apart form the engraved title page
there are few illustrations because Rea's publishers were alarmed
at the 'costly cuts' he required, although Rea's preface denigrates
woodcuts as 'good for nothing, unless to raise the price of the
book'.
The first gardener's calendar published
in England was the Kalendarium
Hortense of John
Evelyn which laid out, month by month, the endless cycle of
work needing to be done both in the orchard and the flower garden.
It is an invaluable record of the mid-17th century garden, the
plants available and techniques used. Kalendarium was first published in
1664 as part of Evelyn's Sylva,
or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees ..., an early work on
conservation or reforestation promoted by the Royal Society to
counter the effect of large-scale burning during the 16th and 17th
centuries which had led to a shortage of timber for ship building.
Immediately popular, Sylva
described the value of certain trees for gardens and influenced the
following century's fashion for landscape gardening which saw trees
planted in quantity for their aesthetic value.