ROBINSON, William. The Wild Garden: or the Naturalisation and Natural Grouping of hardy exotic plants. With a chapter on the garden of British wild flowers. Illustrated by Alfred Parsons.

London: John Murray 1895. Fifth and best Edition. Octavo. pp. xx, 304. Bound by Birdsall in full vellum, covers decorated in gilt to a panel design with outer fleurons and centre gilt lozenge. Flat spine, ruled and titled in gilt. Edition limited to 280 copies on hand-made paper printed at the University Press, Oxford. Out of series copy. Usual light foxing to endpapers. Top edge gilt. A fine copy.

The Fifth Edition of 1895 [the ordinary copies were not issued until 1903] ‘best represents the book in its mature and fully illustrated form’, and is profusely illustrated throughout with ‘exquisite line drawings and engravings’ from paintings by Alfred Parsons. “When ‘The Wild Garden’ first appeared, the prevailing taste in British and European Continental garden design was for meticulously contrived displays of tropical annuals newly introduced from South America. Robinson’s condemnation of this style as rote and wasteful was highly controversial and yet his vision of gardens based upon flowing arrangements of locally adapted winter-hardy plants eventually triumphed and has proved the most enduring.”