An eye-catching pen and ink wash drawing for worker/agricultural stone cottages in Cornwall designed by Carr, who worked for the well known architectural firm of W.D. Caroe. In this large drawing, Carr outlines the layout for 40 houses situated within a village green. It shows the first floor plans of the houses as they are arranged in a half circle, along with detailed elevations for West side and North side groupings. One pair of cottages is shown in front and back elevation. Room measurements are given for parlour, living room, kitchen, three bedrooms and bathrooms. Carr worked from Garthowen, Woking. Notice of his work on church architecture with W.D. Caroe can be found on the Lambeth Palace Library’s Church Plans online website. We also find mention of his winning a prize in the Industrial Design Competition of 1930 (see REPORT ON THE COMPETITION OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGNS, 1930, in “Journal of the Royal Society of Arts” Volume 78, No. 4063 pp. 1150-1172), but this must have been in his student days. The drawing offered here is an accomplished presentation for an entire project.

The original edition of a first hand account of the creation, at the hands of English expatriates, of what would become a legendary Venetian garden, giardino eden, on La Guidecca in the Venetian lagoon. Located behind the Redentore, this one-time vegetable patch was transformed by Frederic (great uncle of the Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden) and Carolyn Eden ( the sister of Gertrude Jekyll) into a little English pleasure ground of pollarded willows, roses, Madonna lilies, irises, etc. beginning in 1884. While importing their own native tastes, the Edens took care to respect the local character of their grounds, “ Building on formal lines made by the canals, an abandoned orchard had been crossed with straight walks covered by 600-700 yards of square-topped vine-clad pergola.” (Festing, S. GERTRUDE JEKYLL p. 154). Traditional structures and ornaments were used. Eden includes an interesting account of well-making on the island and in the garden. The prominence of the Edens in the expatriate community brought notable guests to the garden, as did the caché of later residents such as Princess Aspasia of Greece and her daughter and son-in-law, the King and Queen of Yugoslavia. Henry James, Anna de Noailles, Maurice Barres and Jean Cocteau are also associated with the spot. D’Annunzio set a scene there in his IL FUOCO. In LES DELICES DE L’ITALIE, Jean Louis Vaudoyer calls the garden “the most alluring place in the world to abandon oneself to melancholy.” (as quoted in Weal, M.T., POSTFACE; A GARDEN IN VENICE ). The garden was locked up after the death of its last occupant, but garden historian John Hall obtained entrance and wrote a description for HORTUS, Autumn 2003. “ the most alluring place...”

First edition. Laurence’s “most ambitious literary project...” (Henrey p. 421). With a handsome etched frontispiece by van de Gucht showing the Prince of Wales’s Richmond Lodge or Ormonde Lodge. The work is dedicated to the Princess of Wales, later Queen Caroline to George II, who would eventually improve Richmond Lodge with Charles Bridgeman.. The lodge no longer exists. (Henrey,p. 421 ). Laurence (sometimes spelled Lawrence), who bears the distinction of having written the first original eighteenth century treatise on gardening, THE CLERGY-MAN’S RECREATION, 1714, was rector at Yelverton in Northhamptonshire where he turned an unpromising patch into a thriving fruit garden over the course of 20 years. The first book in this ambitious work concerns every aspect of agriculture from dung to brickmaking. Book II describes the characteristics and uses of a great variety of forest trees, timber trees, evergreens and flowering shrubs, all suitable for growing in England without “housing”. Book Three is about the subject for which the author is perhaps best known, fruit culture. Book IV : the kitchen garden. Book V is devoted to the flower garden and includes “A complete catalogue of Flowers great and small perannual (sic) or annual, usually known or propagated in England, either in the naked Ground or Hotbed.” With seven engraved printer’s ornaments by Francis Hoffman. Henrey 945; Hunt 466; Johnson, A HISTORY OF ENGLISH GARDENING p. 156.

First English edition, translated, with additions, by Richard Bradley. "This was the first treatise on cuttings and graftings, and it made Agricola famous." (Hunt 452). Georg Andreas Agricola was a German doctor from Regensburg whose discoveries regarding plant propagation aroused significant interest at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In a book entitled NEU- UND NIE ERHÖRTER DOCH IN DER NATUR UND VERNUNFFT WOHLGEGEGRÜNDETER VERSUCH DER UNIVERSAL VERMEHRUNG ALLER BÄUME, STAUDEN UND BLUMEN-GEWÄCHSE (1716-1717) he first published details of his methods, including the use of a plaster he called "vegetable mummy," to refute exaggerated claims made about his discoveries by another writer. Bradley prepared this English translation and added to it his own preface as well as a translation of the preface from the French edition. The text is illustrated with copies of the plates from the original German edition. These plates depict examples of the regenerative process described by Agricola along with the grafting techniques, tools and structures employed in the various operations. In publishing Agricola's discoveries in England Bradley was doing what he seemed to do best: publicizing the latest horticultural advances and theories at a moment close to their inception. Hunt 452; Henrey 411

This rare pattern book for park and garden structures was published posthumously by the author's wife from sketchbooks prepared by him over several years. Courval was proprietor of the Chateau de Pinon (Aisne), an ancestral domaine noted for its large picturesque park. He was a determined experimental arborist whose innovative and widely adopted system for the pruning of large trees was first published in 1859 under the title TAILLE ET CONDUITE DES ARBRES FORESTIERS. The discoveries described there all took place at Pinon. In addition to his experiments with trees, however, Courval also managed his extensive property for picturesque effect. A contemporary visitor to the park described it as follows: "The park is splendid, a real domain, all the paths and alleys beautifully kept and every description of tree -- M. de Courval was always trying experiments with foreign trees and shrubs and apparently most successfully. I think the park would have been charming in its natural state, as there was a pretty little river running through the grounds and some tangles of bushes and rocks that looked quite wild -- it might have been in the middle of the forest but everything had been done to assist nature. There were a pièce d'eau, cascades, little bridges thrown over the river in picturesque spots, and on the highest point a tower (donjon), which was most effective, looked quite the old feudal towers of which so few remain now." (quoted from CHATEAU AND COUNTRY LIFE IN FRANCE by Mary King Waddington). The decorative features of the park were apparently also the creation of this talented amateur, who kept several notebooks to record his ideas. The wide range of subject matter includes rustic bridges and out buildings; gates and benches; urns; tools; sign posts; potted shrubs; and almost anything else that might find a place in a French rural private park at the end of the 19th century. Publication of the volume was clearly undertaken as a tribute by the author's widow, whose social standing (or large purse) may have persuaded Rothschild, the most important publisher in the field, to add it to his list. It was not a commercial success and is now quite rare. OCLC locates copies at Princeton and at Dumbarton Oaks and COPAC locates the British Library and British Library Reference Collections copy. CCfr locates two additional copies. The work was apparently unknown to Ganay. “The park is splendid, a real domain...”

First edition, with subscribers' list, of this scarce guide book for Croome Court, the Worcestershire country seat of the Earl of Coventry which was notably transformed by Capability Brown in the mid-eighteenth century. The first portion of the text provides detailed descriptions of the site, the family, the approaches and entrances to the domain, the house (also designed by Brown), and, most importantly, the pleasure grounds and the Park, one of the "largest undertakings of Brown's early practice" (-Stroud, CAPABILITY BROWN, pg. 57). "In the grounds created out of what had been 'as hopeless a spot as any in the island', he formed a serpentine lake, built a grotto at the head of the water, and designed a tunnel under the main road to link parts of the estate. In this demanding commission, his success established beyond doubt his ability as an architect as well as as a landscape designer" (OXFORD COMPANION TO GARDENS, pg 75). These features are all described by Dean, accompanied by illustrations which depict the temple, the mansion (with view of the bridge), a view of Brown's church and one of his rotunda. Post-Brownian features such as the greenhouse designed by Robert Adam and the memorial to Brown are described in the text. An appendix provides extracts from historical notices of Croome and its occupiers starting with the Domesday Book and concluding with a description of the garden from the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, 1792. William Dean was the gardener at Croome and cultivated over 5000 different varieties of plants there, including a substantial collection of exotics. He has included with his guide a 147 page HORTUS CROOMENSIS, which provides a catalogue of these plants giving Latin binomial, English name, place of origin and time of flowering. In conclusion, Dean provides two short essays entitled "Observations On The Progagation of Exotics. (Part I, from Cuttings; Part II, from Seeds)" Abbey Scenery 416.

An amusing late 19th century American set of square advertising cards held together by a grommet at the upper right corners enabling the reader to go through an illustrated “story”. In a progression from “Admiration” through “Flirtation,” “Tribulation” to “Termination,” a little outdoor garden romance takes place in the four scenes with a lady mowing a lawn attracting a gentleman pumping water (with a wind turbine in the background) and ending up with the two embracing at a decorative iron gate. On the “versos” of the chromolithographed scenes are advertisements for Mast, Foos & Co.’s wind engine Buckeye iron fence, Buckeye junior lawnmower, and Buckeye force pump. Get out there and create your garden with the latest enhancements and equipment! Watch out for the cat’s tail while mowing the lawn