How to Know the Wild Flowers: A Guide to the Names, Haunts and Habits of Our Common Wild Flowers
When first published in 1893 this guide to North American wildflowers sold out in five days and received a favorable mention from Theodore Roosevelt. It was the first field guide to flowers issued in America, and this revised and enlarged 1895 edition was enhanced by a cover designed by Margaret Armstrong. The artist had established a reputation with New York publishers when she showed book covers in the Women’s Pavilion at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. This example uses stamped silver and green imagery to celebrate the joys of spring flower gathering, with artist’s distinctive emblematic initials included at upper right. When Armstrong wrote and illustrated her own Field Book of Western Wild Flowers (1915), she used this text as a model.
Artwork Details
- Title: How to Know the Wild Flowers: A Guide to the Names, Haunts and Habits of Our Common Wild Flowers
- Artist: Binding by Margaret Neilson Armstrong (American, New York 1867–1944 New York)
- Author: Frances Theodora Parsons (American, 1861–1952)
- Illustrator: Marion Satterlee (American, late 19th–20th century)
- Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons (New York, NY)
- Date: 1895
- Medium: Illustrations: collotype
- Dimensions: 7 15/16 x 5 5/16 x 1 5/16 in. (20.2 x 13.5 x 3.4 cm)
- Classification: Books
- Credit Line: Gift of Constance C. McPhee, 2012
- Object Number: 2012.128.1
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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Margaret Neilson Armstrong
1909–18
Multiple artists/makers
1902 [first published 1899]
Multiple artists/makers
1913
Multiple artists/makers
1908 [first published 1907]
Multiple artists/makers
1911
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