The Florist's Manual; or, Hints for the Construction of a Gay Flower Garden.

London: Henry Colburn, 1827 Third edition, enlarged, of this gardening guidebook that was among the first of its kind written for women by a woman. The second and third editions are significantly expanded from the first edition (1816), which is about half as many pages and contains only two plates. Publisher's rose-colored boards. . Twelvemo. . With six hand-colored aquatint plates, including large folding frontispiece (11 x 7 "). Expertly rebacked with printed paper spine label. Wear to corners. A very good, unusually bright and wide copy. Maria Elizabetha Jacson (1755 – 1829) was a botanical writer and the daughter of a clergyman who owned land in Derbyshire and Cheshire. Her family had connections to Enlightenment culture in the midlands through Erasmus Darwin and her cousin, Sir Brooke Boothby. She also knew Maria Edgeworth, who described Jacson as a "gay garden lady" and was undoubtedly an influence on Jacson's work. Jackson took an interest in botany from a young age, but did not publish her first book, the children's educational volume Botanical Dialogues (1797), until she was in her forties. She later published Botanical Lectures (1804) and Sketches of the Physiology of Vegetable Life (1811) for an adult audience, the former book being an introduction to the translation of Linnaeus's System of Vegetables (1783) by Erasmus Darwin. The Florist's Manual was her most popular and influential work.