1860 First Edition - Common Wayside Flowers Illustrated by Myles Birket Foster
An exceptionally attractive first edition of Thomas Miller’s Victorian botanical classic, beautifully illustrated by Birket Foster and preserved in its richly gilt and chromolithographically decorated publisher’s binding.
Author: Thomas Miller. Illustrated by Myles Birket Foster.
Title: Common Wayside Flowers.
Publisher: London, Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, Farringdon Street; New York, 56 Walker Street, 1860.
Edition: First Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Pages: v-184 pages.
Size: 9" x 7".
Binding: Attractive and very good original Victorian publisher’s reddish-brown cloth binding, richly decorated in gilt to the boards and spine, with striking inset coloured floral panels to the front board. All edges gilt. Binding firm and remarkably well preserved, with light rubbing and wear to extremities and minor age-related wear, as shown. The gilt and coloured decoration remain notably bright and attractive. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content, bright and tight, with scattered foxing, more noticeable to the preliminary leaves and occasionally throughout, as shown. Contemporary previous owner’s name in ink on the preliminary title leaf.
Illustrations: Complete with the beautiful 24 hand-coloured botanical illustrations by Birket Foster, including the elaborate coloured title illustration and finely rendered compositions of British wild flowers.
Estimate: $500–600 USD.
The book:
Common Wayside Flowers is a particularly appealing example of Victorian natural-history publishing, combining Thomas Miller’s affectionate descriptions of familiar British wild flowers with poetry and the delicate botanical compositions of Birket Foster. Individual sections are devoted to such plants as celandine, snowdrop, primrose, violet, water-lily and holly, presenting the flowers not simply as botanical specimens but as part of the landscape, folklore and seasonal life of nineteenth-century Britain.
Published in 1860, this first edition is especially desirable in its elaborate original publisher’s binding. The combination of gilt ornament, vividly coloured floral panels and hand-coloured illustrations makes it a characteristic example of the lavish gift books produced during the high Victorian period. Copies retaining such an attractive original binding and all of their illustrations have become increasingly uncommon.
The author:
Thomas Miller (1807–1874) was an English poet, novelist and writer whose work frequently celebrated rural life, nature and the customs of the English countryside. Born in Lincolnshire and largely self-educated, he became a prolific contributor to Victorian literature, writing poetry, fiction, histories and books for younger readers.
The illustrator:
Myles Birket Foster RWS (1825–1899) was one of the most celebrated British illustrators and watercolorists of the Victorian era. Renowned for his finely detailed depictions of rural landscapes, cottages, children and flowers, Foster contributed illustrations to many of the period’s most beautiful books and became especially associated with idyllic visions of the English countryside. His botanical work in Common Wayside Flowers is particularly well suited to Miller’s affectionate celebration of familiar wild plants.