The Amateur's Flower Garden

Stock No. 18806

Authors: James Shirley, HIBBERD (1825-90)

Hertford: Groombridge, 1871

A handy guide to the formation and management of the Flower Garden. And the Cultivation of Garden Flowers

First Edition. 8 x 5.5 ins; pp iv, 284 + p16 Groombridge catalogue of new works. Original green decorative cloth with bevelled edges, gilt on upper board and spine slightly dulled, ends of spine rolled. Front gutter showing to crack. Small label of Simson and Groombridge, Herford, laid down at front pastedown. A VG copy. With six coloured plates including the frontispiece, each with tissue-guard, vividly hand-coloured by Benjamin Fawcett, and numerous wood-engraved illustrations and diagrams in the text. The coloured plates are extremely bright with no signs of foxing spots and feature Show Fuchsia (as frontispiece), Show Pelargonium, Show Picotee, Show Ranunculus, Show Dahlia, Hybrid Perpetual Rose. Shirley Hibberd was the first person to successfully promote amateur gardening to the masses at a time when it was scorned by the horticultural establishment. All of his gardens were in inner London and none are thought to exist today. He was not brought up in a leafy middle class area or in a rural part of the country and he had no connection with gardening until later in life. He was born in 1825 in the Mile End Road in Stepney, east London, the son of a retired sea captain who went on to become a printer. His father died when he was in his teens and he became a bookbinder and bookseller.