The Botanic Garden by Erasmus Darwin - 1791/1790

Very good copy of the Large Paper Copy of the Quarto edition of Erasmus Darwin's masterpiece with the William Blake engravings.

With the first edition of Part 1: containing the Economy of Vegetation, 1791, and the second edition of Part 2: containing the Love of the Plants, 1790, bound in one volume.

Large Paper Copy in 29 x 22.5cm (Henrey gives 26 x 21cm for all 1791 editions).

Part I has 10 plates by Henry Fuseli, William Blake, Henry Webber and others engraved by William Blake, Anker Smith, Thomas Holloway. Includes frontispiece "Flora attired by the Elements" by Henry Fuseli engraved by Anker Smith, four plates of the Portland Vase attributed to Blake (bound next to Note XXII page 53 to 59), fold-out botanical of a Cyprepedium orchid, botanical plate of Erythrina, and Sections of the Earth.

The Directions to the Binder indicates only 8 plates, but this copy includes two additional plates: the famous "Fertilization of Egypt," designed by Fuseli and engraved by Blake, with the dog-headed god Anubis standing astride the River Nile at page 127, and Henry Webber's design of the Wedgwood cameo of "Hope with Peace, Art and Labour" and the famous Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion with an enslaved man in chains and the caption "Am I Not a Man and a Brother" at page 87.

Part II is complete with 10 plates by Emma Crewe, Thomas Holloway, and Frederick Polydore Nodder. The frontispiece "Flora at play with Cupid" by "gifted" amateur artist Emma Crewe (1780-1850), daughter of John Crewe, 1st Baron Crewe, was criticized by Richard Polwhele: "she has rather overstepped the modesty of nature, by giving the portrait an air of voluptuousness too luxuriously melting." Other plates are studies of the Venus flytrap, the Aztec lily, tape grass, etc., by botanical artist Frederick Polydore Nodder. Also includes the engraving of a cupid playing with fire by Thomas Holloway within the text on page xi.

With several fascinating newspaper articles and manuscript note from 1845 tipped in behind the Portland Vase plates. The articles relate to the "Destruction of the Portland Vase" in the British Museum by a drunken delinquent on July 9, 1845, his subsequent release from prison, and the Duke of Portland's decision to commission the artists Doubleday and Baldock to repair the broken vase.

In an unsophisticated but solid later half-leather binding of brown leather and tan cloth, gilt title and blind-tooling on spine, new endpapers, slight toning to frontispiece and title pages, but interior clean and bright with little foxing. Some offsetting from plates on to text pages and dust to page edges.