An Oak Spring Sylva: A Selection of the Rare Books on Trees in the Oak Spring Garden Library

Upperville: Oak Spring Garden Library, 1989 4to (29.5 cm), xxvii, 149 pp. Publisher's cloth and dust jacket. "An Oak Spring Sylva" is the first of a series of discursive catalogues describing selections of the rare books and other material in the Oak Spring Garden Library, a collection formed by Mrs. Paul Mellon. Each volume in the Oak Spring series will be a lovely and useful compendium for book collectors, librarians, and garden historians. "An Oak Spring Sylva" focuses on a unique selection of forty-six books, manuscripts and drawings devoted to trees and shrubs. With vivid illustrations and rich descriptions, it covers a vast range of works -- from a tiny 1555 book on oaks to early 19th-century advice on large-scale tree-planting. Among these are world-renowned books like Evelyn's Sylva, Duhamel's Traite des Arbres, and Michaux's North American Sylva, as well as rather unknown treasures, such as Marshall's American Grove, which helped introduce the riches of American forests to European gardens in the eighteenth century.