LAURENCE, John (“John Lawrence” or “Charles Evelyn”) (1688-1732). The Clergy-Man’s Recreation: Shewing the Pleasure and Profit of the Art of Gardening. –The Gentleman’s Recreation. –The Lady’s Recreation… by Charles Evelyn. London: Bernard Lintott, 1717.

3 works in one volume, 8vo (192 x 118 mm). 3 engraved frontispieces by Simon Gribelin, 3 folding engraved plates, numerous woodcut initials, head-and-tail-pieces. (Some spotting, browning or staining, some marginal chipping.) Contemporary English panelled calf gilt (rebacked, preserving old endpapers, some minor rubbing.) Provenance: Baron Buchan Hepburn Bar (armorial bookplate).

Fifth edition of the first work, second edition of the second work. FIRST EDITION of the third work, the first publication of Kalendarium Hortense by Lawrence, which is a reduction of John Evelyn’s work, interspersed with many useful additions. “The first original eighteenth-century English treatise on gardening did not appear until the London bookseller Barnaby Bernard Lintot, or Lintott, published in 1714 The Clergy-Man’s Recreation by John Laurence” (Henrey II, pp. 415). Not only was The Clergy-Man’s Recreation Laurence's first published treatise on gardening, it also “possesses a historic interest because it contains one of the earliest published records of the transmission of a virus by grafting” (Henrey, p. 416, 417). Henrey II, p. 415; Hunt and Willis, editors. The Genius of Place: The English Landscape Garden, 1620-1820.

Selections from the Property of Dr. Eugene Vigil, Antiquariat Botanicum

LAURENCE, John (“John Lawrence” or “Charles Evelyn”) (1688-1732). The Clergy-Man’s Recreation: Shewing the Pleasure and Profit of the Art of Gardening. –The Gentleman’s Recreation. –The Lady’s Recreation… by Charles Evelyn. London: Bernard Lintott, 1717.