Published in 1840, this was Gosse’s first published work.
Written whilst Gosse was farming in Compton, just south of Sherbrooke, in the Estrie region of Quebec.
This was loyalist country, just twenty miles north of the American border. From the slopes of Montjoye you could look south across the lake to the distant hills of Vermont.
This book was a slow seller from the start. There was only one edition (ignoring recent facsimiles) and this appeared in a variety of bindings, of which Freeman and Wertheimer identified three.
My book is numbered 1c in Freeman and Wertheimer, with a cloth case of dark green vertical rib.
Gosse’s original watercolour ‘View of P. H. Gosse’s farm at Compton L.C., Dec. 29th 1837’, reproduced with slight modifications as the frontispiece, is now in the Public Archives of Canada.
Most of the wood engravings were drawn by Gosse himself.
The printer’s address was an error. It should have read Shoe Lane, not Soe Lane.
I purchased this book from Wheldon and Wesley, the famous specialist natural history book sellers, then based in Hitchin, Herts.
Written whilst Gosse was farming in Compton, just south of Sherbrooke, in the Estrie region of Quebec.
This was loyalist country, just twenty miles north of the American border. From the slopes of Montjoye you could look south across the lake to the distant hills of Vermont.
This book was a slow seller from the start. There was only one edition (ignoring recent facsimiles) and this appeared in a variety of bindings, of which Freeman and Wertheimer identified three.
My book is numbered 1c in Freeman and Wertheimer, with a cloth case of dark green vertical rib.
Gosse’s original watercolour ‘View of P. H. Gosse’s farm at Compton L.C., Dec. 29th 1837’, reproduced with slight modifications as the frontispiece, is now in the Public Archives of Canada.
Most of the wood engravings were drawn by Gosse himself.
The printer’s address was an error. It should have read Shoe Lane, not Soe Lane.
I purchased this book from Wheldon and Wesley, the famous specialist natural history book sellers, then based in Hitchin, Herts.
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| Philip Henry Gosse's farm, Compton, 1837 © National archives of Canada / Watercolor from P.H. Gosse / C-84444 |
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