Live auction - Lot 1198
[Botany - Mushrooms]
A treatise on the esculent funguses of England.
London, Reeve, 1847
€ 100 / 150
Live bidding (Drouot*) Live bidding (Invaluable*)Bidding is closed
Lot description
4to: x-138 pp.; 21 pl. (some very min. browning in the margins, some offsetting on pp. 136-137).
Brown embossed buckram, central gilt element on front cover, flat spine (some min. rubbing).
First edition by the English writer, physician, entomologist and mycologist C.D. Badham (1805-1857). Ill. with a hand-coloured lithographed front. after T.H. Cromek and 20 engr. pl. by Anna Maria Hussey of which 17 hand-coloured. After visiting fungus markets in Italy, Badham became more interested in the subject and published this well-received treatise. Eating funghi was still considered as an eccentric and dangerous pastime in England at the time, but the work attracted some popular interest, if only as a curiosity.
Ref. COPAC. - Pritzel 320. - Nissen (BBI) 58.
Prov. Joseph Fry (ms. ownership). - Katharine Fry, daughter (ms. ownership). - W[alter] Everard Fry, grandson (ms. ownership).