Cleveland, Ohio is a city of great cultural and educational resources. The collection of rare herbal, botanical, and horticultural books in Cleveland comprise an especially rich treasure from the past. in their pages lie a golden trove of pictures and words that unlock a story of discovery. Some tell the story of botanizing in foreign lands; others of using plants for medicine, of designing beautiful landscapes, and of creating portraits of flowers. The books were originally brought together for different reasons. Some were part of the working libraries of scientists and physicians. Others were assembled by dedicated and passionate collectors. In time, the collection became part of the libraries of the Holden Arboretum, the Cleveland Botanical Garden, and the Cleveland Medical Library Association. Today, Cleveland is home to an impressive array -- one of the finest in the nation -- of rare herbals and early botanical works. We invite you to sample them and learn their story.

The Annual Bibliography of the History of the Printed Book and Libraries aims at recording articles of scholarly value which relate to the history of the printed book, to the history of arts, crafts, techniques and equipment, and of the economic social and cultural environment, involved in its production, distribution, conservation and description.

Contemplating the textual gardens, poetic garlands, and epigrammatic groves which dot the landscape of early modern English print, Leah Knight exposes and analyzes the close configuration of plants and writing in the period. She argues that the early modern cultures and cultivation of plants and books depended on each other in historically specific and novel ways that yielded a profusion of linguistic, conceptual, metaphorical, and material intersections. Examining both poetic and botanical texts, as well as the poetics of botanical texts, this study focuses on the two outstanding English botanical writers of the sixteenth century, William Turner and John Gerard, to suggest the unexpected historical relationship between literature and science in the early modern genre of the herbal. In-depth readings of their work are situated amid chapters that establish the broader context for the interpenetration of plants and writing in the period's cultural practices in order to illuminate a complex interplay between materials and discourses rarely considered in tandem today.