The Greek temples at Paestum in southern Italy were almost unknown until the 1750s. They became better known through publication. This book by Thomas Major was one of the first that enabled architects of Northern and Western Europe to study the three…
Surgeon James Johnson (1777-1845) was on board the 36 gun ship Caroline, commanded by B. W. Page. Dedicated to Henry Lord Viscount Melville, this work contains a topographical and picturesque sketch of all the places annually visited by the British…
In the 1870s the artist Gustave Doré depicted Macaulay's New Zealander visiting future London. In the accompanying text Jerrold wrote, ‘Macaulay's dream of the far future, with the tourist New Zealander ... contemplating "The glory that was Greece…
Apart from the general interest attaching itself to an Elizabethan translation of the Travels of Marco Polo, the present edition aims at supplying a long-felt want in Polian research - a series of maps embodying the latest work and discoveries of…
At the age of seventeen, the Venetian Marco Polo (1254-1324) travelled with his merchant father, Nicolo, and his uncle, Maffeo, to the court of Kublai Khan. Polo was away from Venice for twenty-four years. His account of his travels and of the Peking…
This beautiful set of books provides a fascinating visual and textual introduction to the Middle East and North Africa. This image of the Sphinx, with its mellow shadowing and tiny human figures for perspective, conveys the stark awe of Europeans…
John Gerard's reputation rests principally upon his Herball or generall historie of plants (1597). It was not original. It was based on the work of Rembert Dodoens and de L'Obel. It does however contain original gardening advice, based on Gerard's…
Houston describes himself as 'an intelligent member of the Otago Provincial Council viz A miners representative & practical digger & storekeeper at Gabriel's Gully'
The Rev. John Laurence (1668-1732), was the first of sixteen clergymen to write important gardening books in the 18th century. His first work The Clergy-Man's Recreation (1714) aimed to preserve the health of clergy by encouraging them…
As well as writing his own books on gardening and arboriculture, the English virtuoso John Evelyn translated several influential French manuals. The first (1658) was Nicolas de Bonnefons's Le Jardinier François, a handbook on the cultivation of…
Maria Jacson (mis-spelled Jackson) (1755-1829) wrote her book The Florist's Manual (1816) for middle-class women, so that their choice and arrangement of plants would ‘procure a succession of enamelled borders' (p.4) through spring and summer. She…