London: Printed by Adam Islip, Joice Norton and Richard Whitakers, 1633. Folio, (325 x 210mm) *8, ** - ***6, A-B8, C-Z6, Aa-Zz6, Aaa-Zzz6, 4A-4Z6, 5A-5Z6, 6A-6V6, 6X4, 6Y-6Z6, 7a-7b6 (lacking first and last blanks), Engraved title, prelims. [xxxvi], text pp. 1-[1632], indices, 23 leaves, profusely illustrated with woodcuts of plants throughout the text, titlepage frayed and laid down, minor loss at lower margin but imprint still legible, 3 prelims with marginal strengthening, text generally clean but a few leaves with heavy waterstaining, margins of some Index leaves frayed and/or mended, last leaf laid down, 19/20th century brown morocco, stoutly re-backed, old spine laid on.
Perhaps not the most elegant copy, nevertheless this copy is textually complete and in a mechanically efficient binding which will last several generations. AND IT IS LESS THAN HALF THE PRICE OF A FINE COPY.
“Johnson’s Gerarde”, with 2765 woodcuts, is almost half as long again as the first edition (1597) and is, in every respect, immeasurably superior to its predecessor. In a Catalogue of Additions Johnson says “I have thought good to give you the names of all such as are added either in figure or description, or both” and proceeds to give a list of some 880 additions. He was commissioned by the publishers to produce this amended and enlarged edition at short notice in order to forestall Parkinson’s Theatrum Botanicum, believed to be imminent, (it finally appeared in 1640), and he complains bitterly in his preface that he “was forced to performe this task within the compasse of a yeare”, - an almost superhuman effort. Almost all the woodcuts were from a different source from Gerarde’s, (mostly from Plantin’s stock), but some of the figures he drew himself, notably the famous bunch of bananas on page 1516. This had been given him on 10th April 1633 by Dr. Argent, President of the College of Physicians of London, who had received it from Bermuda. Johnson’s drawing is the first illustration of bananas to be published in England. Having drawn and described them, he says - “ the stalke with the fruit thereon I hanged up in my shop, where it became ripe about the beginning of May, and lasted until June” . The shop was in Snow Hill, in the City, and it must have been there also that John Payne studied this unknown fruit before incorporating it into his engraved title-page.

STC 11751 Blunt & Raphael: Illustrated Herbal [1979] p.166 et seq. Henrey. 155