Figures of beautiful, useful, and uncommon plants described in the gardeners' dictionary, exhibited on three hundred copper plates, accurately engraven after drawings taken from nature : with the characters of their flowers and seed-vessels, drawn when they were in their greatest perfection. To which is added an account of the classes and orders to which they belong, according to Linnæus's method of classing them; with their places of growth, times of flowering, and other particulars / By the late Philip Miller, F.R.S. gardener to the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries at their Botanic Garden at Chelsea, and member of the Botanic Academy at Florence.
Publication details: London : Printed for F. C. and J. Rivington, J. Johnson, T. Payne, B. Hayes, J. Walker, Scatcherd and Letterman, J. White, Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and Cadell and Davies, 1809. Description: 2 volumes (iv, 32p., 150 leaves of engraved plates; p. [33]-74p., [150] leaves of engraved plates, 15p.) : hand coloured illustrationsSubject(s): Botanical Illustration -- 18th century | Botanical Classification -- 18th century | Botany -- 18th centuryGenre/Form: Dictionaries -- Horticulture -- 19th centurySummary: The plants illustrated were either engraved from drawings of specimens in the Chelsea Physic Garden or drawings supplied by Miller's numerous correspondents, who included John Bartram, the Pennsylvania naturalist (cf. plate 272), and Dr. William Houston, who travelled widely in the Americas and West Indies and bequeathed Miller his papers, drawings, and herbarium. Miller initially intended to publish one figure of a plant for every known genus, but in his preface he explains that the expenses of production have caused him "almost from the Beginning … to contract his Plan, and confine it to those Plants only, which are either curious in themselves, or may be useful in Trades, Medicine, &c., including the Figures of such new Plants as have not been noticed by any former Botanists." For the plants drawn from examples in the Garden, Miller employed Richard Lancake and two of the leading botanical artists and engravers of the period, Georg Dionysius Ehret and Johann Sebastian Miller. The work was published by subscription in 50 monthly parts (each part with 6 plates) between 25 March 1755 and 30 June 1760; there were later editions in 1771 and 1809.| Item type | Current library | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
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Early Printed Book
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RPS Library Early Printed Collection | Basement Store Shelf 44.3 (58(038) MIL) (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Not For Loan | 221697 | ||
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Early Printed Book
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RPS Library Early Printed Collection | Basement Store Shelf 44.3 (58(038) MIL) (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Not For Loan | 221696 |
The work was originally published by subscription in 50 monthly parts (each part with 6 plates) between 25 March 1755 and 30 June 1760 as a companion to Miller's Gardeners' Dictionary (first published in 1731), and a further edition published in 1771.
The plants illustrated were either engraved from drawings of specimens in the Chelsea Physic Garden or drawings supplied by Miller's numerous correspondents, who included John Bartram, the Pennsylvania naturalist (cf. plate 272), and Dr. William Houston, who travelled widely in the Americas and West Indies and bequeathed Miller his papers, drawings, and herbarium. Miller initially intended to publish one figure of a plant for every known genus, but in his preface he explains that the expenses of production have caused him "almost from the Beginning … to contract his Plan, and confine it to those Plants only, which are either curious in themselves, or may be useful in Trades, Medicine, &c., including the Figures of such new Plants as have not been noticed by any former Botanists." For the plants drawn from examples in the Garden, Miller employed Richard Lancake and two of the leading botanical artists and engravers of the period, Georg Dionysius Ehret and Johann Sebastian Miller. The work was published by subscription in 50 monthly parts (each part with 6 plates) between 25 March 1755 and 30 June 1760; there were later editions in 1771 and 1809.
Presented by F.W.J. Hooper.
Previous Accession Numbers: AEWN, 26430, 26431. Previous Classmark: 58(03). Previous locations: Basement Store Shelf 44.3.
Refurbished in library cloth with raised bands and leather title pieces on the spines, October 1997.