front cover of The Domestic Herbal
The Domestic Herbal
Plants for the Home in the Seventeenth Century
Margaret Willes
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2020

In the seventeenth century most English households had gardens. These gardens were not merely ornamental; even the most elaborate and fashionable gardens had areas set aside for growing herbs, fruit, vegetables, and flowers for domestic use. Meanwhile, more modest households considered a functional garden to be a vital tool for the survival of the house and family. The seventeenth century was also a period of exciting introductions of plants from overseas, which could be used in all manner of recipes.

Using manuscript household manuals, recipe books, and printed herbals, The Domestic Herbal takes the reader on a tour of the productive garden and of the various parts of the house—kitchens and service rooms, living rooms and bedrooms—to show how these plants were used for cooking and brewing, medicines and cosmetics, in the making and care of clothes, and to keep rooms fresh, fragrant, and decorated. Recipes used by seventeenth-century households for preparations such as flower syrups, snail water, and wormwood ale are also included. A brief herbal gives descriptions of plants both familiar and less known to today’s readers, including the herbs used for common tasks like dyeing and brewing, and those that held a particular cultural importance in the seventeenth century. Featuring exquisite colored illustrations from John Gerard’s herbal book of 1597 as well as prints, archival material, and manuscripts, this book provides an intriguing and original focus on the domestic history of Stuart England.

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front cover of Pick of the Bunch
Pick of the Bunch
Twelve Treasured Flowers
Margaret Willes
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2009

In the dark, bitter days of winter, when the ground lies frozen and snow-covered, it can be hard to believe that mere months before, gardens and window boxes were bursting forth with fragrant, colorful blossoms. Today on the frosty walk home, at least we can pick up cut flowers at the store to remind us of the spring to come. But before the technological miracles of hothouses and refrigeration, flowers could only be captured for the winter months by artists and painters. Some of the finest flower-pieces ever painted were by Dutch and Flemish artists in the seventeenth century, which depict flowers in vases of metal and porcelain, sometimes with insects and butterflies nestling in petals or clinging to stalks. From these flower-pieces we can see what Europeans of the time considered desirable flowers: the rose, iris, carnation, lily, snowdrop, violet, fritillary, narcissus, tulip, daffodil, and hyacinth—many of which are still our favorites today.

Alongside lush color botanical illustrations, Pick of the Bunch presents the social history of these flora—how they arrived in our gardens; how they were bought, acquired and displayed; and who were their devotees and cultivators. The book delves into their symbolic associations in classical and Christian traditions and examines the complex language of flowers employed by the Victorians. Beautiful to behold and engagingly written, Pick of the Bunch  is a wonderful gift for any garden lover and will be a warm, much needed glimpse of spring and summer throughout the cold, barren months.

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front cover of A Shakespearean Botanical
A Shakespearean Botanical
Margaret Willes
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2015
When Falstaff calls upon the sky to rain potatoes in The Merry Wives of Windsor, he highlights the belief that the exotic vegetable, recently introduced to England from the Americas, was an aphrodisiac. In Romeo and Juliet, Lady Capulet calls for quinces to make pies for the marriage feast, knowing that the fragrant fruit was connected with weddings and fertility. Shakespeare’s contemporaries would have been familiar with such ripe symbolism in part due to herbals, tomes filled with detailed botanical descriptions consulted to deepen knowledge of the plants of the day.
           
A Shakespearean Botanical follows in the tradition of the medieval and Renaissance herbal, touring the Bard’s remarkable knowledge of the fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers of Tudor and Jacobean England through fifty quotations from his plays and verse poems. Each of the entries is beautifully illustrated with hand-colored renderings from the work of Shakespeare’s contemporary, herbalist John Gerard, making an appropriate pairing with his writing, along with a brief text setting the quotation within the context of the medicine, cooking, and gardening of the time.

The book’s many beautifully reproduced images are a pleasure to look at, and Margaret Willes’s well-chosen quotations and expert knowledge of Shakespeare’s England provide readers with a fascinating insight into daily life. The book will make an inspiring addition to the Shakespeare lover’s bookshelf, as well as capitvate anyone with a passion for plants or botanical art.
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