Wood and Garden (Inscribed copy)

Inscribed by Gertrude Jekyll to His Royal Highness Prince Constantin

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First edition, seventh impression. Hardback, bound in the original blue cloth with gilt titling and design to spine and upper board. 23 × 14.5cm, 286pp.

This copy has been inscribed but not signed by Gertrude Jekyll with an undated inscription in ink to the ffep, "from a fellow gardener to His Royal Highness Prince Constantin". There is an antiquarian booksellers's stamp to the rear pastedown (Anticariatul Nr. 4) with a Romanian price (Lei 50) suggesting Constantin could have been either Constantin Karadja, born in 1889, who was a Romanian prince of the Karadja Pasha family, or Prince Constantine, the Duke of Sparta, who took a keen interest in gardening.

This is the gardening calendar of gardener Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1932) in which, using her own photographs, the author traces the progress, month by month of the gardening year.

Condition

Fair to good condition, but rare with the author's inscription. The blue cloth is faded to the spine, and with mottled fading to the upper board. There is a closed tear to the first blank from the hinge (there are three blank pages at the start of the book, the third with the inscription). The pages with light scattered foxing throughout, the main body of text with secure binding but pulling. The whole remaining in good readable condition but with age-related wear, and a nice example of Gertrude Jekyll's handwriting.

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