Wild Flowers
London: The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 1853. Binding: Full original green cloth boards with central debossed blind wreath medallion surrounding gilt-lettered title and blind decorative motifs at corners. Spine with gilt lettering.
, Notes: Anne Pratt (1806 – 1893) was a botanical and ornithological illustrator and author from Strood, Kent. Anne Pratt was one of the best-known English botanical illustrators of the Victorian age. As a consequence of her poor health (due to rheumatic fever) and an impaired knee, during her childhood, she was excluded from sports, and was encouraged to occupy herself by drawing. Pratt was educated at Eastgate House, Rochester, and introduced to botany - considered a suitable field for women - by Dr. Dods, a family friend. She moved to Brixton, London, in 1826, where she developed her career as an illustrator. Pratt settled in Dover in 1849, and in East Grinstead in 1866.
Pratt first rose to prominence with Wild Flowers of the Year, published in 1852–1853, which was dedicated to Queen Victoria with the monarch's permission.[2] Pratt composed more than 20 books, which she illustrated with chromolithographs, on which she collaborated with William Dickes, an engraver skilled in the chromolithograph process. Her works were written in an accessible but accurate style that was partly responsible for the popularising of botany in her day. From her first book, Flowers and Their Associations, her works sold well, but she did not ever achieve critical acclaim as a consequence of a bourgeois disdain for the autodidactic woman.
, Size: Folio (350 x 280 mm), Illustration: Good example of this work on wildflowers, each page featuring 2 engraved vignettes. 2 copies of pg. 3. , Pages: 96 pp., Category: Book Natural History;. Spine defective, some leaves loose, repairs throughout. Item #B7361
Price: $250.00