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PARKINSON, John (1567-1650). Theatrum botanicum: The Theater of Plants. Or, an herball of a large extent: Containing therein a more ample and exact History and declaration of the Physicall Herbs and Plants that are in other Authours, encreased by the accesse of many hundreds of new, rare, and strange Plants from all the parts of the world. London: Thomas Cotes, 1640.
One volume bound in 2, 2o (414 x 266 mm., large and thick paper). Additional engraved title by William Marshall (Johnson 79) (with duplicate engraved title, inlaid to size, bound before leaf 4N1 at beginning of second volume), errata leaf at end, 2716 quarter-page woodcuts in the text, woodcut initials, factotums, and head- and tail-piece ornaments (some browning and staining at end of first part.) Contemporary black morocco, covers gilt-panelled with central gilt lozenge ornament, gilt edges (rebacked, preserving original backstrip). Provenance: Irene Bernhard Hoffmann; Carleton P. Richmond (bookplates on front pastedowns).
FIRST EDITION, of this classic British herbal, "one of the two main pillars of botany in England till the time of Ray" (Henrey, p. 79, quoting the 19th-century botanist Sir James Edward Smith). Parkinson's vast survey of the botanical world was eclipsed during his lifetime by Johnson's edition of Gerard's herbal and by his own popular treatise on horticulture, Paradisus terrestris, and was dismissed after his death as a plagiary of Lobel. In fact Parkinson's magnum opus was largely an original work: although like all botanical writers of the period he did borrow from contemporary and earlier herbalists, and availed himself of information in an unpublished manuscript of Lobel which he had purchased after the latter's death, Parkinson's work was not simply derivative. The 4,000 plants that he described exceeded by 1,000 the subjects of Gerard's Herbal, and include the names of 28 British species not previously recorded, among them the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) of western Ireland, and the lady's slipper orchid (Cypripedium calceolus) of Lancashire. "The descriptions in many instances are new, and great care was exercised to secure accuracy in indicating localities... His arrangement, founded sometimes on medicinal qualities, sometimes on habitat, sometimes on apparent botanical differences, shows how little progress was made in classification by the herbalists" of this period (Hunt, quoting J. R. Green, History of Botany in the United Kingdom, 1914). Cleveland Collections 197; Garrison-Morton 1823; Henrey 286; Hunt 235; Nissen BBI 1490; NLM/Krivatys 8620; STC 19302; Norman 1643. (2)
One volume bound in 2, 2
FIRST EDITION, of this classic British herbal, "one of the two main pillars of botany in England till the time of Ray" (Henrey, p. 79, quoting the 19th-century botanist Sir James Edward Smith). Parkinson's vast survey of the botanical world was eclipsed during his lifetime by Johnson's edition of Gerard's herbal and by his own popular treatise on horticulture, Paradisus terrestris, and was dismissed after his death as a plagiary of Lobel. In fact Parkinson's magnum opus was largely an original work: although like all botanical writers of the period he did borrow from contemporary and earlier herbalists, and availed himself of information in an unpublished manuscript of Lobel which he had purchased after the latter's death, Parkinson's work was not simply derivative. The 4,000 plants that he described exceeded by 1,000 the subjects of Gerard's Herbal, and include the names of 28 British species not previously recorded, among them the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) of western Ireland, and the lady's slipper orchid (Cypripedium calceolus) of Lancashire. "The descriptions in many instances are new, and great care was exercised to secure accuracy in indicating localities... His arrangement, founded sometimes on medicinal qualities, sometimes on habitat, sometimes on apparent botanical differences, shows how little progress was made in classification by the herbalists" of this period (Hunt, quoting J. R. Green, History of Botany in the United Kingdom, 1914). Cleveland Collections 197; Garrison-Morton 1823; Henrey 286; Hunt 235; Nissen BBI 1490; NLM/Krivatys 8620; STC 19302; Norman 1643. (2)