Beschreibung:

ANDREWS, Henry C. (fl.1794-1830). The Botanist's Repository, for New, and Rare Plants. Containing Coloured Figures of Such Plants, as Have Not Hitherto Appeared in any Similar Publication . London: T. Bensley for the author, 1797-[1815]. 10 volumes, 4° (266 x 202mm). Letterpress title to vol. I and 10 engraved titles, those in vols VII and VIII with the numbers supplied in ink. 664 hand-coloured engraved plates by and after Andrews printed in black or green ink and heightened with gum arabic, 64 folding. Titles and plates in vol. VI with tissue guards. Index/errata leaves in all vols and index leaves for vols I-V and VI-X at the end of vols V and X respectively. (Some variable light spotting and offsetting, some titles and plates shaved affecting captions or image, a few folding plates creased at fore-edge and with minor surface rubbing, pl. 147 with marginal inkmark, index leaf to vols I-V trimmed at fore-edge and with paper flaw.) Contemporary near-uniform English straight-grained green morocco gilt [2 vols with endpapers dated 1803, another with endpaper dated 1814], boards with gilt borders and fleuron cornerpieces, gilt turn-ins, spines gilt in compartments, gilt morocco lettering-pieces in 2, the others decorated with various tools, gilt edges (spines slightly faded, extremities lightly rubbed, a few light scuffmarks). Provenance : Horace Noble Pym (1844-1896, bookplates) -- bookseller's description tipped onto endpaper of vol. I. FIRST EDITION. THE PYM COPY IN A CONTEMPORARY MOROCCO BINDING OF AN IMPORTANT PERIODICAL, which highlighted the exotic species -- including a large number from South Africa, amongst them 47 proteas and 26 ixias -- which were neglected by periodicals such as Curtis' Botanical Magazine , and was one of a group of four which 'made a contribution of lasting importance to the literature of botany and horticulture by providing records and means of identification of a great diversity of beautiful and interesting plants, many of them new to science' (Hunt II p cxiii). Most (if not all) of the descriptions in vols I-V were written by Andrews' father-in-law, the nurseryman John Kennedy; those for vol. VI by Adrian Howarth; those for vols VII-X by George Jackson This copy retains the letterpress title to vol. I which was 'often discarded' (Stafleu and Cowan), and the varying dates of the endpaper watermarks and the variation between the borders and spine tools indicate that the near-uniform morocco bindings were executed in a series of campaigns, as the parts were issued, thus: vols I-II; vols III and V-VI; vol. IV; vols VII-X. This set is from the library of the Victorian bibliophile and editor Horace N. Pym. Arnold Arboretum p. 38; Cleveland Collections 641; Dunthorne 8; Great Flower Books p. 155; Nissen BBI 2382; Pritzel 174; Stafleu and Cowan 135. (10)