23 February 2009

Why bibliophiles love books





Look at these beautiful illustrations from a medical botany textbook.

...a first edition of Stephenson and Churchill’s celebrated 1831 Medical Botany: Or, Illustrations and Descriptions of the Medicinal Plants of the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Pharmacopoeias; Comprising a Popular and Scientific Account of All Those Poisonous Vegetables That are Indigenous to Great Britain. This four volume set features 185 elaborately hand-colored engraved botanical plates, with 7 of those double page.

Well-done scientific illustrations can actually be more useful than photographs, and they have their own inherent beauty. The examples shown are from an item presently on offer at eBay, so if you want to view the other couple dozen prints, you probably need to do so soon, before the listing is pulled.

Bidding for the book is currently at $1,001.01, with 5 hours to go...

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