Section 1

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unwitting assistance of the noted Flemish physician and botanist, Mathias de Lobel, from whom Gerard lifted original unpublished research.

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

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.