Search Results: Titles starting with C from Speaking Volumes

Unknown edition, dated 1863, title page, vi, 832 pp. 8vo (22cm tall), original dark brown blind-tooled cloth boards with more recent black leather spine with gilt lettering. Boards with some small marks and scratches, marbled textblock edges, internally clean and bright with some small stains.
Alphonso Wood was an American botanist and educator who did more than any of his contemporaries to make botany popular and accessible to students of the subject. Although not the most eminent figure in his field, his readable botany textbooks were widely used in schools in 19th-century North America. Naturally for the time, the book's introduction approaches the subject from a creationist perspective, arguing that the mechanical structure, function, physiology and life cycle of plants as well as their interrelationships with Man are divinely predetermined. Nevertheless, the text does encourage the student to study plants as a means of self-improvement in combination with seeking pleasure.

4to (28cm), frontispiece + title page + v + dedication page + 398pp + [iv] index pages + [iv] adv. pp. 20 full-page colour plates, all present, each with 9 hand-coloured engravings. Rebound in light brown half calf, gilt lettering and tooling to spine; blue, gold and white marbling to boards. Flyleaves, frontispiece, title page and rear advertisment pages all heavily foxed but text is still legible, bulk of text with light occasional foxing.
A 19th-century unspecified edition of this classic work, dated 1848. The renowned herbalist and astrologer Nicholas Culpeper (1616 - 1664), one of the most (in)famous proponents of herbal treatment, intended this work for commoners, hence how he came to be known as "The People's Herbalist". An audacious character with a strong dislike for authority, Culpeper was initially commissioned to translate into English the ''Pharmocopoeia Londinensis'', the text which all pharmacists were legally required to own and consult since Henry VIII took away the Church's power to… Read More

Small 8vo (20cm), x + 311, bound in brown half calf, original marbled blue and brown boards, later spine with red title block and gilt lettering and tooling. Newburgh library stamp to title page, most pages are a little grubby but without affecting the text.
The author, Francis Trevelyan Buckland (1826 - 1880), was an English surgeon turned naturalist. He was particularly interested in fishes and was a founding member of the acclimatisation society in Britain, an organisation that supported the introduction of new plants and animals as food sources. He adopted his interest in consuming exotic meats from his father, the theologian William Buckland. Short-time editor of the outdoor sporting magazine The Field, Frank wrote multiple popular works on natural history, but did not appreciate the honour of having some of his writings used in Charles Darwin's Descent of Man, since he was opposed to Darwin's theory of evolution.
Frank Buckland was practically minded, having gained much of his natural history… Read More