Collections of an Only Child: Seventy Years a Bibliophile, the Library of Justin G. Schiller

London: Printed by I. Dawks, for H. Rhodes, and J. Taylor, 1710. First edition. Tall thick folio. (vi), xvi, 1,296, (42) pp.; final leaf (8H2) supplied in facsimile. Title-page printed in red and in black. Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece by K. Cyrus after K. Solomon, and profusely illustrated with hundreds of in-text botanical woodcuts. Full contemporary brown calf, decorated in blind, rebacked, tips sometime renewed, red morocco spine label, wear to boards and extremities; dark speckled edges; endpapers renewed; contemporary ownership inscription on verso of frontispiece ("George Grays' Salmon's Herbal March the 7th 1745/6..."); scattered spotting and toning to text; small chipping along frontispiece fore-edge, repaired tear in top edge of same; repairs and old tape residue at bottom of b; b4 misbound after c4; repair in bottom k; old tape residue in fore-edge and gutter L3, repairs to same; short closed tear in fore-edge X4; short closed tear in top edge 4K3; open tear at bottom 4M2, just touching some text; repair vertically traversing 6I1; closed tear in bottom edge 6K2; wear and repairs along edges of Index leaves.

First edition of William Salmon's monumental herbal, featuring hundreds of fine botanical woodcuts. Includes the first known reference to the tomato's cultivation in North America, referred to by Salmon as growing in the Carolinas, and called by their English name, "love apples" (p. 29).