Chromolithographies

1885 · 63673 — London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Einrik & Binger Chromolithographers 15 Holborn Viaduct 1885. Folio. 12 x 15.5 in. 38 pp unpaginated. With 15 chromolithograph colour plates each with facing text leaf. Olive-green pictorial publisher’s cloth gilt decorative lettering front cover British ferns depicted in green & black decorative endpapers minor edgewear minor bumping to corners head & foot of spine slight occasional foxing still a VG- bright copy. First edition of this wonderful production by the noted British botanist designed to depict all British fern varieties in nearly life-size formats through the chromolithography of Einrik & Binger. This was designed to serve as a key visual reference for the legions of specimen and herbarium collectors during the Victorian fern rage or Pteridomania where enthusiastic and often zealous during the last half of the 19th Century filled ferneries created fern cabinets and herbariums. Ferns varieties illustrated within encompass Royal Fern Broad Buckler Fern Harstongue Mountain Buckler Fern Holy Fern Brittle Bladder Fern and many others. Heath 1843-1913 was a noted British botanist civil servant editor of Gilpin’s “Forest Scenery†and a pioneering force in the Open space and Green Belt movements across Victorian England. Einrik & Binger produced chromolithographs & lithographs for very few British & European illustrated works and are not included in Twymann’s History of Chromolithography. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, [Einrik & Binger, Chromolithographers, 15, Holborn Viaduct], hardcover