PBA Galleries

[38] (incl. engraved title-page), 1630, [2], [44] pp. Illustrated throughout with woodcuts of plants; copper-engraved pictorial title-page. (folio) 33x22 cm (13x8½"), old calf. Third Edition.

Third edition of Gerard's great herbal, which first appeared in 1597; this is basically the same as the second edition, which was the first to be edited by Johnson, noted by David M. Knight, Natural Science Books in English, 1600-1900, as "botanically greatly superior to the first edition." Blunt, in The Art of Botanical Illustration, says "Johnson's scholarly edition of Gerard (1633) was illustrated with 2677 blocks from the collection accumulated by Plantin." The present copy is known to lack the blanks at front and rear, also leaves Vv6 (pp. 519-20), Xx5-6 (pp. 529-532), with an unidentified leaf bound between pp. 544 and 545 (its page number torn off and other marginal loss), apparently few other leaves missing as well, not fully collated.