AN OAK SPRING SYLVA: A SELECTION OF THE RARE BOOKS ON TREES IN THE OAK SPRING GARDEN LIBRARY. DESCRIBED BY SANDRA RAPHAEL. de Raphael, Sandra. Preface by Rachel Lambert Mellon - 1989

Upperville, Virginia: Oak Spring Garden Library, Upperville, Virginia, 1989., 1989. 147 pp, 4to (11 1/2" H). Patterned endpapers. "(This) is the first of a series of catalogues describing selections of the rare books and other material in the Oak Spring Garden Library, a collection formed by Mrs. Paul Mellon. The 'Sylva', which deals with books and manuscripts on trees, will be the smallest volume of the series, describing nearly fifty books, manuscripts, or drawings, from a tiny 1555 book on oaks to early nineteenth-century advice on large-scale tree-planting, a range including both great books, like Evelyn's 'Sylva', Duhamel's 'Traite des Arbres', and Michaux's 'North American Sylva', and more modest ones, like Marshall's 'American Grove', which helped introduce the riches of American forests to European gardens in the eighteenth century. Each description makes clear the background of each book and its relationship to others, while a generous number of illustrations in colour and black and white help to give an impression of their contents. Many of the Oak Spring copies have particularly interesting associations, recorded in inscriptions, book plates, or binding details, all of which are described." Dust jacket has very light edge wear/wrinkling at top/bottom of spine and flap-folds, small line indentation on rear hinge.. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Very Good.