Ferns of the British Isles, Described and Photographed by Cortauld, Sidney - 1877

Paternoster Row: John van Voorst, 1877. Illustrated with 20 mounted original photographs, octavo, pp ii, 65, inner gutter margins are stained throughout, a small light stain to the lower outer margin for the first eighteen pages or so, pages slightly waved due to the mounted plates, an early inscription on the front blank, original green decorated cloth, slightly worn and marked and a little bowed. RARE. [This book is one of the earlier horticultural books to be illustrated with actual photographs. Sydney Courtauld JP (1840-1899) was a Crêpe and Silk manufacturer, and part of the Courtauld family empire in Great Britain. He was a keen horticulturalist and was the first person who managed to get the orchid Masdevallia costaricensis (now renamed Masdevallia marginella) to flower in England. He donated the Braintree and Bocking Public Gardens to the people of Braintree on 26 November 1888.]. First Edition. Cloth. Fair.