The Little Book of Botany; or, Familiar Exposition of Botanical Science, Simplified and Written Expressly for Young Botanists...

Bookseller Notes

A charming little book. The issue on tinted paper was likely produced in a very limited run for presentation purposes; OCLC locates one other copy thus, at the British Library - one other work with a Darton imprint, 'The Chronology of the Kings of England' (1834), is known to have been printed on blue paper (others may exist, but unrecorded).'Precocious' is the word most commonly used to describe the author, born in 1816, whose career as a naturalist began as a teenager and offered its first fruits with 'Flora Metropolitana' in 1836 - a guide to London's botanical rarities, advertised at the rear of this volume. Seeking through the present work to instil the same inquisitive wonder that has guided him in its composition, Cooper's study is sufficiently detailed to require a reader whose intelligence in such matters likewise exceeds their youth: its sections cover the constituent parts of the organism - skin, roots, stem, leaves, and, finally, the organs of fertilization.Cooper, born in Lambeth, was the second son of John Thomas Cooper, 'a teacher of chemistry at a private medical school and well known in London scientific circles'; though intended to prepare him for a medical career, his education under local physician James Forbes Young in fact helped to foster his passion for natural history, particularly field botany. In the same year as his first book was published, Cooper was instrumental in founding the Botanical Society of London: 'a frequent contributor of papers and exhibits to its early meetings, as initial honorary curator it fell to him to realize the society's central function as an agency for the postal exchange of dried specimens for herbaria'. In order to 'make a living as a naturalist, Cooper had meanwhile taken on numerous lecturing and writing commitments, including editing the short-lived Microscopic Journal' and acquired a 'temporary post in the zoology department of the British Museum, assisting with its invertebrate collections' as a way of supporting his vocation. These frenzied efforts, however, ended in him trading that pursuit for 'the more secure and leisured existence offered by medical service in the army', reverting to the original end of his studies, but with fatal results - 'a few months, after joining a cavalry regiment at Leeds, phlebitis brought on by a slight injury led to his death at the barracks, at the age of only twenty-five [perhaps twenty-six], on 23 November 1842' (ODNB).