Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Vol. 45: or Flower-Garden Displayed

Good copy of Volume XLV (45) or Third of the New Series of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, 1818.

With 58 (of 81) hand-coloured botanical plates (No. 1948-2022). Seven folding plates. Missing 23 plates: 1945-1947, 1952-1962, 1968, 1989-1994, 2001.

Copperplate engravings after an unknown artist, a few engraved by Weddell.

Includes many exotic flowers and plants including endangered Jamaica sago, bitter ginger, Cape aloe, sweet crabapple, blood lily, Florida arrowroot, brown widelip orchid, boneset, cherimoya, passionflower, sunflower, etc.

John Sims (1749-1831) was an English physician and botanist. Born in Canterbury and educated at the Quaker school in Burford, Oxfordshire, he went on to study medicine at Edinburgh University. He became the first editor of the Botanical Magazine after the death of William Curtis in 1799, and edited the magazine from 1801 to 1826.

Contemporary quarter leather binding dry and flaking, spine with five raised bands, chipped orange and burgundy leather title labels, gilt decoration, marble boards, book block solid. All botanical plates bright and clean with vibrant hand colour, a few with slight spotting, dust at the edges. Three plates stained and browned (1986-1988), one with a tear.

With the famous decorative bookplate with skull, rococo cartouche, books and flowers of Kenneth Rae, a director at Cobden Sanderson publishing house, engraved by British artist Rex Whistler on front endpaper.