Musci Exotici; Containing Figures and Descriptions of New or Little Known Foreign Mosses and other Cryptogamic Subjects.

First edition, 2 vols., 4to (290 x 225 mm), Large paper copy, vol. I: viii, 96 hand-coloured plates with unpaginated accompanying text; Vol. II: 80 hand-coloured plates and accompanying text followed by 32 page index with an errata leaf, some light offsetting to text leaves, light spotting to endpapers, cont. calf, rubbed, rebacked, both vols., with a dark stain to base of spine, overall a clean and presentable set. Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785ñ1865), born and educated in Norwich, an inheritance gave him the means to travel and to devote himself to the study of natural history, particularly botany. He married Maria, the eldest daughter of the Norfolk banker Dawson Turner, in 1815, afterwards living in Halesworth for eleven years, where he established a herbarium that was renowned amongst botanists at the time. This is the rare large paper copy with all engravings hand-coloured, Hooker published more than twenty major botanical works over a period of fifty years, this being one of his scarcest works. Provenance: Bookplates of Sir Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave, grandson of Dawson Turner. Stafleu & Cowan, 2990; Nissen, Botanische Buchillustration, 925; BM (NH), p. 870; Pritzel, 4210.