The Garden of Eden: or, An accurate Description of all Flowers and Fruits now growing in England..., In two parts… by PLATT (SIR HUGH) - 1675

London: William and John Leake, 1675. Contemporary calf. Very good. 6th Edition. 8vo (`24 x 9 cm). Contemporary tooled calf. Spine and corners repaired. Collation [xxviii], 148pp.; [xvi], 159, [1]pp. Second part has a separate title-page and pagination. Text had fore-edge has fraying and marginal damp staining; early worming on rear fep. This is a posthumous publication of Platt’s 1608 Floraes paradise… that continued to be published with the ne title The garden of Eden and edited by Charles Bellingham. The second part was issued in 1660. The first part contains a brief description of all sots of Fruits and Flowers, with the means ho to advance their Nature and Growth in ENGLAND (p.1). This is done in an alphabetical manner with each brief essay numbered and the subject printed in the fore-edge margin. The second part is similarly organized but much enlarged with longer essays and more focus on trees.

Provenance: bookplate of Harold Hulme Brindley. He was a British zoologist, educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge where he took honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1888. He aided Weldon and Bateson in a period largely devoted to measurements designed to ascertain the technique of natural selection. He also contributed to the study of variation of the Mollusca and the Orthoptera group of insects, and acted as an Examiner in zoology at Glasgow University, 1915-18 and 1925-6. He was also a Fellow of St John's, and, from 1914 to 1923, Steward of the College. Brindley was deeply interested in shipping, and rose to distinction as a nautical archaeologist. He was a founding member of the Navy Records Society and of the Society for Nautical Research, serving as its Vice-President. In 1935 he was Head of the Seal Room of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. (Nature 153, 309, 1944; ODNB) (Henrey 299; Hunt 340; Wing P2388)