Botany of the Speke and Grant Expedition. An Enumeration of the Plants Collected during the Journey of the Late Captain J.H. Speke and Captain (Now Lieut-Col.) J.A. Grant from Zanzibar to Egypt.

London: Taylor and Francis, 1872. First Edition, First Issue, 4t0 (29 x 22 cm); Contemporary red half morocco, marbled endpapers, possibly publisher’s presentation binding, all edges gilt. iv, 190 pp.; with folding coloured lithographic map with route marked by hand in red, 136 coloured plates of African flora by Walter Hood Fitch.

With a tipped in autograph note describing this copy and signed from Grant, dated 15th July, 1876, presenting the work to a Steward Gladstone. According to a penciled note, this may be one of the twelve coloured copies executed for the Grant family.

One of 12 Specially Coloured Copies

In the introduction, Grant notes that in 1860, when appointed to accompany Speke to the sources of the Nile, “…it occurred to me that many a pleasant hour might be spent in collecting plants and seeds while traversing the country to be explored… I purchased some drying-paper and a couple of books for notes… Captain Speke thought it far too cumbrous for such a journey, but readily yielded to my wish to have it. He afterwards saw with me how the plants were appreciated when we took them to Kew upon our return… Would that my poor friend had survived to see the present result!”

These finely coloured plates, produced from ‘actual specimens’, are the work of the prominent botanical illustrator Walter Hood Fitch and show ‘either new species or such as had never been figured abroad or at home, the object being to present what was of the greatest interest to the botanist’ (Introduction p.7).

Nissen BBI 1468; cf. Stafleu & Cowan III, 7057.

Provenance: Bradley Martin. Bookplate of Bookplate of Esmond and Chrysee Martin.