The Herball Or Generall Historie of Plantes. Gathered by John Gerarde of London, Master in Chirurgerie.

Bookseller Notes

A rare, complete, composite first edition of the greatest English herbal. The meteoric career of John Gerard, successful barber-surgeon, head gardener to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, curator of the College of Physicians' physic garden, was crowned by his title in a Somerset House garden lease, 'surgeon and herbarist to the king' (James I), but the source of his greatest achievement was his own private garden in Holborn. Here, with the help of influential friends and contacts - notably Lancelot Browne and Matthias de L'Obel - with whom he exchanged plants and seeds, he grew a wide variety of exotic and rare specimens, including the first potato grown in England (the first illustration of the plant is included here). The publication was not without controversy. Following the success of Lyte's translation of Dodoens' herbal, the Queen's printer, John Norton, had originally commissioned Dr. Robert Priest to provide the text, but he died leaving the work incomplete. How much of the content is Gerard's work is a matter of conjecture, though it is widely acknowledged that, in addition to Priest's work, he relied heavily on L'Obel and Clusius; the errors, however, apart from the observations drawn directly from his garden, are his own, often derived from folklore including the famous goose-bearing barnacle tree. Norton, keen to avoid comparisons, eschewed Dodoens' original illustrations, choosing to rent the 1800 or so woodblocks from Nicolaus Bassaeus in Frankfurt, though this led to a number of mislabelled examples. Perhaps due, in part, to its composite origins and Gerard's engaging writing style, the work was hugely successful, and highly influential. Derek Jarman owned a copy of the first edition and cited it as an inspiration for his renowned garden, quoting in his journal in 1989, an extract concerning violets: 'for flowers through their beauty, variety of colour, and exquisite forme, do bring to liberal and gentle manly minde, the remembrance of honesty, comlinesse and all kinds of virtue.' (A. Pavord, The naming of names the search for order in the world of plants, 2005; Derek Jarman Garden Museum website)