Heading:
Author: [Darwin, Erasmus]
Title: The Botanic Garden. A Poem, in two parts. Part I. Containing the Economy of Vegetation. Part II. The Loves of the Plants. With Philosophical Notes
Place Published: London
Publisher:Printed for J. Johnson
Date Published: 1791
Description: 2 parts bound together. xii, 212, [1], 212-214, 126, [2]; [4], ix, [1], 197 pp. With general title and separate dated title pages to each part. With 2 copper-engraved frontispieces & 18 copper-engraved plates, 1 folding. (4to) 27.7x21.5 cm (11x8½"), period calf boards, rebacked in modern brown calf, spine lettered in gilt. First Edition of Part I; third edition of Part II.Epic poetic tribute to the lives, loves, and reproductive capacity of plants by the grandfather of Charles Darwin, who was to take the theme to an altogether higher level. Darwin's Garden is important for the five plates in Part I engraved by William Blake: "The Fertilization of Egypt," engraved after the painting by Henry Fuseli, and four engravings of the Portland Vase. The Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that "The chief source of Erasmus Darwin's literary fame during his lifetime, The Botanic Garden contains a great deal of important and frequently advanced scientific information in the nearly 300 footnotes and the 115 pages of appendices to its verses..."

Wear to old boards, first several leaves foxing but remainder of text remarkably clean, plates offsetting; very good or better.