Edmund Jankowski, Flowers of Our Gardens [1880]

Volume: 426 pages, 355 illustrations in the text, and XIII full-page plates featuring flowerbeds and groundcover arrangements.

Size: 26 cm.

Binding: Contemporary cloth-covered binding in a minimalist library style.

“Flowers of Our Gardens” is a comprehensive 19th-century handbook on ornamental gardening: it covers the description and cultivation of bedding plants, the principles of creating flower carpets, flowerbed designs, and methods for drawing and planting them. The book contains 355 illustrations in the text and 13 full-page plates. The author, Edmund Jankowski (1849–1938), a gardener and pomologist, was the head gardener at the Pomological Garden in Warsaw and editor of *Ogrodnik Polski*. This second edition, revised and expanded, was published by the Warsaw publisher Gustaw Sennewald and printed by Józef Unger’s printing house.

Provenance: On the reverse of plate XI, a handwritten signature in ink (unclear reading: “Stefan Langcht”); on the last page, an inscription in Cyrillic reading “П. Зорич Степан” and a second, illegible signature. On p. 79, there is a clear imprint of a coin that was once pressed into the paper.

A must-read for lovers of classic natural history literature, the history of gardens, and beautiful vintage illustrations.

The block is intact. The paper is soiled, especially in the margins. The half-title page was previously glued in; the text is legible. The modern binding is in good condition.

An item from the 19th Polish Antiquarian Book Auction.