1771 Book

[anabella]

My mom knows how much I love old stuff, so she gave me a book she had been given by a book dealer, Plants of North America, by John Reinhold Forster, printed in London in 1771. it has a new binding but the pages are all original. There are some handwritten notes that seem to be from the era but I’m not sure, maybe someone on here can decipher it? I can’t read it at all. the end of the first note I think says 2 May of ‘71. Either way it’s pretty cool.

[oldrocks2]

Very special gift.

[painshill]

What a lovely thing to have been given. I think you’re correct about the date.

I sooo wanted the signature at the bottom to be that of Joseph Banks (1743-1820), later Sir Joseph Banks (1795), the famous English naturalist and botanist who was elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1788. It’s exactly the kind of book he might have been expected to own or gifted to someone. His signature exhibits numerous style variations over time, but I can’t convince myself that the signature has enough similarities to be his. Compare to these:



Your signature is at the top and the others are from various documents he signed at different times. Look at the style of the ‘B’ on the second one and the style of ‘Esq’ on the third one for example. It’s terribly difficult to read the annotation/dedication at the top, but it looks something like: “Should you (ye?) A##d## it (in?) Sist(er?) Marys….” The first character (repeated at the start of the fifth word) is very curious, but if it's not a letter 'S' then I don't see what else it could be. It looks more like an 'R' but that makes no sense.

Banks’ writings habitually display quirks and idiosyncrasies that make them difficult to read. He had no respect for punctuation and rarely used it. Words often begin with a capital letter, even when in the middle of a sentence. He often didn’t bother with double letters or added them when not needed (eg Prime Minister ‘Pitt’ became ‘Pit’ and ‘fig’ fruits became ‘figgs’). Place names and personal names are often misspelled. Extra characters are also common (eg ‘cabin’ becomes ‘cahbin’). He habitually dropped the final ‘e’ for verbs in the past tense (eg ‘learned’ becomes ‘learnd’). Many words are truncated or abbreviated, sometimes down to a single letter, or ending in odd superscripts (eg ‘wch’ for ‘’which’, ‘commee’ for committee’ and ‘R’ for ‘Royal’). Sometimes the resultant words are hard to understand or make no sense at all.

I compared what is written in your book to some of the letters he wrote, but couldn’t get satisfactory matches to the capital characters. The only ‘Mary’ in his life seems to have been his aunt ‘Lettice Mary’ but she died in 1757. He did have a sister but her name was ‘Sarah Sophia’. Neither he nor his sister had any children.

[anabella]

Thank you so much for this, after realizing it said “Banks Esq.” I also thought it may have been his, or someone who knew him. I posted this same post to an old book collectors forum, where someone told me the writing on the title page is actually in Welsh! it says “gift of the author,” and then something with an R and surname Morys. so searching online I came across a Welshman named Rhisiart Morys or Richard Morris who worked in London (where the book was printed.) He was a writer and editor. Assuming the book was his, I’m guessing he must have known the author Forster, and Banks, considering he knew to write his name in there when the text was referencing a “friend?” This is all a big guess but it makes the most sense to me!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Morris_(editor)

[Olden]

Nice, and still in print!

https://www.amazon.com/Flora-Americae-Septentrionalis-Catalogue-America/dp/1164648004

acid free archival book box

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=acid+free+book+box

[painshill]

QUOTE: Thank you so much for this, after realizing it said “Banks Esq.” I also thought it may have been his, or someone who knew him. I posted this same post to an old book collectors forum, where someone told me the writing on the title page is actually in Welsh! it says “gift of the author,” and then something with an R and surname Morys. so searching online I came across a Welshman named Rhisiart Morys or Richard Morris who worked in London (where the book was printed.) He was a writer and editor. Assuming the book was his, I’m guessing he must have known the author Forster, and Banks, considering he knew to write his name in there when the text was referencing a “friend?” This is all a big guess but it makes the most sense to me!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Morris_(editor)


How very interesting. It didn’t even occur to me that the dedication might not be in English. It now makes perfect sense.

“Rrhodd yr awdur i…” in Welsh would translate as “Gift from the author to…” and the recipient is then “Rhisiart Morys”, better known under his anglicised name “Richard Morris” as per your Wikipedia link.

[Cecilia]

Dang Pain, shoulda known you knew Welsh!

[KiloSSK]

Okay, so that book is not only a unique gift due to its sheer age, but it has belonged to an editor as well, that's pretty impressive. I've sometimes seen books that old (or even older! One of them was from 1687) on sale in a city near my hometown, but they were all prayer books with no fascinating backstories.

[Tam]

Very interesting to me I truly enjoyed this thread . I collect any old hard back . Dream is to have a nice library or at least some filled book shelves .
Always looking .

[Fat]

Good Lord Thankyou Amen
MrPainshill, is your other day job, or are you that guy on tv gameshow, win his money something, dont know the name but they call him the Beast? I dont recall ever seeing him loose.
and if hims not you,
would you please be my partner on that show? Ill give you half of my half, that is 75-25.
With you on my team, I think Ill win forsure.