ESSAYS ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING

MORRIS, Richard.  ESSAYS ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING.   

London: J. Taylor, 1825. 4to. Contemporary boards, sympathetically rebacked. x, 91, (1) pages, 6 aquatint plates. First edition. [Abbey, Life, 40].

A thoughtful and detailed work which acknowledges a debt to Repton, Uvedale Price, Gilpin and Shenstone.  Morris offers practical advice with admirable clarity and conciseness.  He was secretary of the Medico-Botanical Society of London.  In his Essays on Landscape Gardening he distinguishes between the beautiful and the picturesque, and gives practical instruction for creating a rural estate including planting, water features, ornament and the effect of distant scenery.  Morris's book is most notable for its plates, three of which are hand-colored, and two of which have overlays.  The book is very reminiscent of those by Repton.  Archer refers to it as "an important exposition of principles of design common to landscaping and to country house architecture in the first quarter of the nineteenth century."  Wear to extremities, else very good.

 

$6,000.00