I Enjoy Reading,

and looking at old books about travel and natural history,

and here is one that piqued my interest, in the UK we seem to assume nothing much in the natural world is going to kill us, no huge wild animals, poisons spiders or lizards, although we do have one poisonous snake, and I guess it should be noted that there have been 14 recorded human deaths from adder bites since 1876, the last being in 1975, so that apart I guess the UK is pretty safe, but then I saw this book, I know we have a few poisonous plants and fungi, but not so many as to have a book devoted to them! and here it is, British Poisonous Plants, published in London by John Van Voorst in 1861,

I just love old books like this,

the authors are Charles Johnson; C Pierpoint Johnson,

this scarce copy of this guide to British poisonous plants, is the second edition and is complete with thirty-two hand-colored plates by John E Sowerby,

compiled due to the occurrence of accidental poisoning in the country during the nineteenth century, as a bonus this edition contains four additional plates and descriptive text of the principal fungi in Britain,

as for the books condition it is in the original publisher's full cloth binding. Externally very smart with minor shelf wear only and a minor bumping to the head and tail of the spine and extremities. Previous ownership inscription in pencil to the front pastedown, dated 1973. Internally, firmly bound, the hinges starting to the first leaf of plate bound in to the rear. The pages are bright and clean with only the odd minor faint spotting to the odd leaf, what a lovely book to read and own, yours for £180.00 here at Rooke Books.