Books

4to. pp. 330; 393, [4 leaves], 88. with half-titles. engraved frontis. portrait of Evelyn by Bartolozzi, 42 engraved plates (2 double-page), most drawn & engraved by John Miller (Johann Sebastian M�ller), Terra with 3 engraved plates. lacking plate list. 19th century half morocco, t.e.g. (some wear to edges & corners, some foxing mainly to plates & adjacent leaves, plates offset, some plates with marginal browning, dampstaining to lower outer corner of plates & a few leaves, minor worming in lower margins through several gatherings in Vol. I). Fifth Hunter Edition. Originally published in 1664, Evelyn's Sylva was "the first important book to be published in [Britain] on forest trees.no other work on arboriculture exerted a greater influence on forestry in this country.and certainly no other book on the subject was so often quoted." (Henrey, pp. 101, 108). The 1776 edition, prepared by Dr. Alexander Hunter [1729-1809] of York, virtually doubled the size of the original text, adding extensive annotations, practical instructions, and references to the best eighteenth century authorities, including Linnaeus, Philip Miller, Duhamel du Monceau, Buffon, and Pehr Kalm. There is an excellent account by William Speechly, gardener to the Duke of Portland, describing the method of forming plantations used at Welbeck. According to Hunter the text had been collated with all five of the previous editions and corrected with the help of "some Original Manuscripts". The plates include thirty-six showing foliage, flowers, and fruits of various types of trees, drawn and engraved by John Miller (Johann Sebastian M�ller), a 'Winter View of the Cawthorpe Oak', near Wetherby, Yorkshire, engraved by Miller after a drawing by William Burgh, two views of the famous Greendale Oak at the Duke of Portland's estate engraved by Thomas Vivares and A.Rooker after drawings made in 1775 by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm, &c. Henrey 141. Keynes 51. Pritzel 2766. cfRaphael, An Oak Spring Sylva, 33 (1786 edn.).