
          Early Hort. Lit.

- 12 -

Examination of the text or contents of a book is perhaps not so much a feature of
technical bibliography as of literary criticism, but there is no doubt that a certain
amount of such research is needed for many of these old books. There are many cases of
variation in title but none in text, such as the "Connoissance et culture des tulipes
rares” of 1688 and 1696; plagiaries such as the "Traité des tulipes” issued by De Sercy
in 1678, which is a poor reprint of the "Floriste Francois” (1654 & 1658) of La Chesnne
Monstereul; pretentious compilations, particularly in translation, like the ”Nieuwe Nederlandse
Bloem-Hof” of Hendryck van Oosten, combining La Quintinye's tract on orange
culture with anonymous French works on the carnation, tulip, auricula &c. After being
published in Dutch it was translated back into French, naturally with further variations.
Another interesting case is the "Jardinage des oeillets" (Paris, 1647), included in editions
of Morin's ”Remarques necessaires pour la culture des fleurs”, from 1667 onwards;
and in garbled form in many other works; and often incorrectly credited to Morin.

Again, there are editions precisely alike but for their dates , and others that are
apparently identical but prove very different . Justice's "British gardener's director"
has a 4th edition, Dublin, 1765, with same paging as the edition of Edinburgh, 1764. It
has almost the same contents, but entirely rearranged, and must have been revamped from
an edition earlier than that of 1764, the preface of which refers to the recent death of
the author and indicates an up-to-date revision. The Dublin copy is evidently an unauthorized
or spurious issue, and may contain serious deviations from the author's work-

Similar cases might be multiplied, and while they may seem to be beyond the bounds
of strict bibliography, they are of interest in the purchase and cataloging of works of
this class. To the amateur of old books, distinctions without a difference may be a desideratum; 
in most libraries they are a nuisance and a waste of space. It is often more
satisfactory to own a single copy of a work, with the knowledge wherein it resembles and
wherein it differs from supposedly similar ones, than to own all the issues of the same
work. But in order to discriminate between these variations, it is imperative that their
characteristics be definitely and accurately described once and for all; both their purely
bibliographical features like imprint and collation, and also their elusive differences
in contents.

MFW - 9/1/45
        