DOUGLAS, James. A Description of the Guernsey Lily. Guernsey: The Clear Vue Publishing Partnership Limited. 2012.
4to. 2 vols. One volume in half brown morocco with marbled boards and gilt lettering to spine, one volume in pink with lettering and and design in white, in original brown slipcase; pp. [iv] + 76 + [iv] and 3 folding plates, xviii + 88 with tect illustrations and errata slip; fine.
One of limited edition of 185. The Guernsey lily has grown on the island for 350 years, presumably introduced by sailors from its native South Africa, and has become an important species. Not only is it enormously beautiful, it is the first example of the Nerine species to be found in Europe and became highly prized for its exoticism in the eighteenth century. James Douglas's treatise on the plant, the first monograph on a single ornamental bulb species, was first published in 1725 and was given an much enlarged, much scarcer second edition in 1729, which is reproduced here in facsimile. Complementing this volume is a commentary and bibliography by Helen Brock, completed in the 1980s but here published for the first time, sadly posthumously.
#2119020