Culpeper's Complete Herbal

4to (28cm), frontispiece + title page + v + dedication page + 398pp + [iv] index pages + [iv] adv. pp. 20 full-page colour plates, all present, each with 9 hand-coloured engravings. Rebound in light brown half calf, gilt lettering and tooling to spine; blue, gold and white marbling to boards. Flyleaves, frontispiece, title page and rear advertisment pages all heavily foxed but text is still legible, bulk of text with light occasional foxing.

A 19th-century unspecified edition of this classic work, dated 1848. The renowned herbalist and astrologer Nicholas Culpeper (1616 - 1664), one of the most (in)famous proponents of herbal treatment, intended this work for commoners, hence how he came to be known as "The People's Herbalist". An audacious character with a strong dislike for authority, Culpeper was initially commissioned to translate into English the ''Pharmocopoeia Londinensis'', the text which all pharmacists were legally required to own and consult since Henry VIII took away the Church's power to regulate medicine in an attempt to crack down on quack doctors prescribing false remedies. However, Culpeper added to his translation recipes for herbal remedies, with the result that public audiences would no longer require to consult the experise of a physician in preparing a remedy. To add insult to injury, Culpeper inserted in the text many of his own amusing and critical remarks directed towards the Royal College. Despite the severe counter-criticisms he received from Royal College physicians, his book became an instant success with the masses, and Culpeper went on to write The English Physitian and the Complete Herbal.

The Complete Herbal was written in informal accessible language, providing a useful index of ailments and making it easy to find the correct herb for a cure. The book was also cheaply priced to make it affordable for commoners. The prose was amusingly irreverent, witty and sometimes fiercely critical towards Culpeper's contemporaries about their herbal methods. One famous phrase in the preface of the work makes this obvious: "This not being pleasing, and less profitable to me, I consulted with my two brothers, Dr. Reason and Dr. Experience, and took a voyage to visit my mother Nature, by whose advice, together with the help of Dr. Diligence, I at last obtained my desire; and, being warned by Mr. Honesty, a stranger in our days, to publish it to the world, I have done it."

Culpeper's Herbal and Complete Physician went on to become one of the most popular and enduring books in publishing history, so much so that it is still in print today.