Author’s Note
The book that will be discussed below is the second edition,
edited by Thomas Johnson and published in 1633, of John Gerard’s 1597 Herball.
Due to its status as a revised edition, it is impossible to discuss some
aspects of the 1633 edition without discussing its predecessor. For that
reason, this paper will concern itself with aspects of both texts. All
discussion of the physical condition or size of the text will be in reference
to the copy of the 1633 edition donated to the Special Collections Department
of the Love Library at San Diego State University by the San Diego based artist
Amy Josephine Klauber Wormser.
Introduction
The inaugural edition of John Gerard’s Herball was published
in 1597. It was a large format, book containing a listing of numerous forms of
flora for use by both medical and botanical professionals as well as the
expanding English middle class (Harkins, 2007). In a society in which plants
provided not only food but medical remedies, the book proved to be a resounding
success, making Gerard a household name throughout England; this despite the
fact that, even before its publication, there were controversies surrounding
the book.
The commission to produce the text was first awarded to a Dr.
Priest by John Norton, official printer to Queen Elizabeth I of England. The
details of the commission were to produce a translation of the famous 1554 herbal
by the Flemish Botanist Rembert Dodoens; however, Priest died while still in
the process of completing the translation.
Priest’s death led to the rewarding of the commission to Gerard, a
well-known figure in the quickly maturing botany scene in London. Gerard, who
Anna Pavord describes as “a plagiarist and a crook (2005, p. 332)” made it
plain in the text of the Herball that he had not used Priest’s translation, a
claim that was known by many at the time to be false. Gerard did expand the
material originally covered by Dodoens; however, this was done through the
unwitting assistance of the noted Flemish physician and botanist, Mathias de
Lobel, from whom Gerard lifted original unpublished research.
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| Mathias de Lobel |
Even with these claims of plagiarism and intellectual
property theft, Norton’s greatest concern was the rampant inaccuracies in the
pre-printed draft (Harkins, 2007). Lobel, a highly respected contemporary and
friend of Gerard, was hired to revise and edit the text. Working without
Gerard’s knowledge, Lobel identified and correct over 1,000 mistakes from the
first two sections of the Herball before Gerard caught word of his involvement.
Once discovered, Gerard insisted Lobel be fired, an act which caused understandable
strain on their relationship for the rest of their lives (Pavord, 2005). This decision,
coupled with Gerard’s inability to match woodcuttings to their proper plants, lead
to a book that was filled with inaccuracies.
Despite the numerous issues sounding its preparation, Norton
published the text in 1597. In the twenty years following its publication the
flaws in the Herball could be overlooked because it was without comparative
competition (Arber, 1935). When it became clear that a new herbalist, John
Parkinson, was going to produce a competing text, Gerard’s estate commissioned
London apothecary Thomas Johnson to rework the Herball. The commission provided
Johnson just one year to not only complete Lobel’s edits, but update the book
with the information that had been amassed since its publication thirty years
prior.
Just as Gerard took pains to distance himself from Dr.
Priest’s translation, Johnson, an influential and respected botanist in his own
right, would take pains to distance himself from the inaccuracies of the
initial publication. This was begun in his introduction to the second edition
and continued throughout the book by means of notating in each section of the
text, the places where he had edited or augmented the original material. Johnson’s
updates lengthened the text to just over 1,700 pages and fixed many of the inaccuracies
of the first edition. His work produced a text that would not just survive, but
thrive over the following century (Harkins, 2007).
Titles
The
full title of the book is: Herball or generall historie of plantes.
Printers and Publishers
The
printers of the book were Adam J. Flip, Joyce Norton, and Richard Whitakers.
While little is known about the individuals, it is known that they worked out
of the publishing house of Norton and Bonham.
John Norton, the publisher of the 1597 edition of the Herball, held the
title of official printer to Queen Elizabeth I of England. At the time of
publication, Norton’s shop was “one of the city’s busiest and most prestigious…
[which] specialized in expensive, large format books (Harkins, 2007, P. 15).”
Place of Publication
The copy of the Herball held by San Diego State University is
from the first printing of the second edition. It was printed in London,
England in 1633.
Authors
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| John Gerard |
The title page of the 1633 edition of the Herball describes
the book as being “Gathered by John Gerard of London, Master in CHIRVRGERIE [archaic: Surgery].” Gerard
was a self educated man of many accomplishments. Born in 1545, he was
apprenticed at the age of 17 as a barber-surgeon. At 22 he took a job
supervising the gardens of William Cecil, Lord Burghley (Rohde, 1971), who
became his lifelong patron and to whom all editions of the Herball were dedicated.
A separate text published by Gerard in 1596 and detailing the 1,039 species of
plants in Cecil’s gardens was the first text ever produced to catalog a large
private garden (Pavord, 2005).
Over the course of 11 years, beginning in 1597, Gerard rose
through the ranks of the Barber-Surgeons, beginning as a warden and eventually
taking on the role of master. Though widely respected as a botanical collector,
his contemporaries felt he was lacking in technical knowledge as a botanist (Harkins,
2007). Harkins argues that it was not superior knowledge that has elevated
Gerard over his contemporaries, but his ability to be published. However, this
has not diminished his standing in modern times, where he still considered the
most famous English herbalists (Raphael, 1986).
The second credit listed on the title page notes that the
book was “Very much enlarged and amended by Thomas Johnson Citizen and apothecary
of London (Gerard and Johnson, 1633).” Johnson was himself a highly regarded
botanist and apothecary in his lifetime. While there are many gaps in our
knowledge of his life, Johnson has a substantial claim to fame in the ranks of
English botanists (Pavord, 2005); a claim that has begun to be fulfilled over
the past 20 years.
Anna Pavord (2005) dedicates a
fair amount of text to Johnson’s life and his influence on the study of English
field botany; far more than authors of previous generations. Born shortly after
the turn of the seventeenth century, almost nothing is known about him until
1629, at which time he had completed an eight year apprenticeship and began his
career as a practicing apothecary in the Snow Hill section of London. Johnson’s
long term goal was to produce a text containing all the plants in the British
Isles. To that end he took multiple trips around the country and corresponded
with other leading botanists. Between
1629 and the beginning of the English Civil War in 1642 Johnson was very busy
gathering and documenting flora in the English countryside. His efforts were
laid out in his publication Mercurius
botanicus. Published in two parts, the first in 1634 and the second in
1641, these texts were the first attempt at what would come to be known as a
botany field guide.
Unfortunately, the beginning of
the English Civil War a year after the second half of the book was published put
an end of Johnson’s research. He was killed at the Siege of Basing House in
September 1644 while fighting for the royalists. There is general agreement
among modern experts that had Johnson survived the war and continued his work
he would not have languished in undo obscurity as long as he did.
