A Popular History of British Seaweeds, comprising their structure, fructification, specific characters, arrangement, and general distribution, with notices of some of the Fresh-Water Algae.

London: Reeve and Benham, 1851 A very good copy in the original decorative cloth binding with 22 plates by Fitch and Brooks, 20 of which are hand coloured. This work is part of the Popular History series - produced initially by Reeve, Benham and Reeve for young people beginning to learn about the natural world. They were beautifully produced with decorative bindings and well engraved and coloured plates. They provide an insight into the victorian fascination with nature - with titles covering ferns, mosses, lichens, birds etc. Seaweeds was written at a time when knowledge of species and locations was rapidly expanding, and the second edition was produced 2 years after the first to accommodate this new information. The binding has bright clean boards and a lightly faded spine. The spine has pulling to ends and a small cloth hole on the front spine joint close to the top - the rear joint has a small scuff at the same point. The bottom corner of the back board is bumped - the other corners are lightly turned. Internally there is the bookplate of Henry Yool Esq to the front pastedown endpaper and a piublishers catalogue tipped in at the front endpapers. The contents are complete and clean. There are small creases to the bottom corners of text pages from p 365 to 392.