Xenia Fields Book of Garden Flowers by Field, Xenia
Xenia Field's Book of Garden Flowers (Premium Collectible Hardcover Edition)
A Masterfully Illustrated Mid-Century Survey of Herbaceous Perennials and Border Curation
A Masterfully Illustrated Mid-Century Survey of Herbaceous Perennials and Border Curation
Bibliographic Specifications
- Title: Xenia Field's Book of Garden Flowers
- Author: Xenia Field
- Publisher: The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., London
- Publication Date: 1971
- ISBN-10: 0600017230
- ISBN-13: 9780600017233
- Edition Details: Presumed First Edition thus (1971 Hamlyn release). A beautifully preserved exemplar of mid-century British botanical publishing.
- Binding: Original publisher's premium full-cloth boards, finished with crisp typography across the spine face.
- Physical Format: Quarto (4to). Densely illustrated with a curated layout of vibrant full-colour photographic plates, detailed border grid diagrams, and historical sketches of herbaceous specimens.
- Language: English
Official Condition Report
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The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
- Exterior Boards: The original full-cloth hardboards are exceptionally straight, solid, flat, and square. The spine face is completely unbroken, undamaged, firm, and uncreased, showing an exceptional absence of standard reading stress. Casing displays only very limited, microscopic storage shelf friction along the extreme corner tips, completely consistent with premium domestic archiving. The volume is protected inside a premium cellophane cover sleeve.
- Interior: The structural text block binding is remarkably tight, square, and firm. Internal leaves, text diagrams, and high-gloss color sections are crisp, clean, bright white, and fully intact. Completely free of previous owner ink signatures, modern highlighting, text underscores, dog-ears, or dealer pencil notations.
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The Dust Jacket: Very Good Plus (VG+)
- Condition & Integrity: The original illustrated graphic dust jacket is present, retaining its sharp visual clarity and deep vintage coloration without any sun fading or major paper loss. It exhibits only very limited, minor signs of vintage shelf wear along the extreme upper edges, now completely stabilized and beautifully preserved behind the premium archival cellophane sleeve wrapper.
Synopsis & Historical Value
First released in London in 1971 by Hamlyn, Xenia Field's Book of Garden Flowers stands as a classic reference work from the golden era of mid-century cottage gardening. This meticulously compiled volume focuses heavily on showcasing herbaceous plants in all their glory, providing a masterfully written roadmap that describes each specimen in precise detail so readers can confidently decide how to deploy them to the best aesthetic effect in their own plots.
The work bridges the gap between pure botanical taxonomy and practical landscape architecture. Field systematically breaks down the heights, color variations, blooming intervals, and soil preferences of dozens of popular and rare herbaceous perennials—guiding the reader through the intricacies of building layered cottage borders, managing seasonal color shifts, and grouping companion flora. Rich with timeless cultivation wisdom and pristine visual layouts, this beautifully preserved hardcover printing serves as both a practical guide and a scarce collectible testament to 1970s garden design.
Author Profile: Xenia Field
Xenia Field (1894–1998) was an elite British horticultural author, journalist, and social reformer whose long-standing multi-decade career profoundly shaped public gardening media across Europe. Best known to the public as the iconic, highly influential gardening editor for the Daily Mirror for nearly thirty years, Field was celebrated for her unique ability to strip the dry, overly complex academic jargon away from botany. A trailblazing broadcaster and author of numerous definitive guidebooks—including The Daily Mirror Book of House Plants and Grow Your Own Shrubs—she dedicated her life to proving that premium landscape curation could be highly practical, structured, and accessible to everyday homeowners. Her enduring publications remain standard foundational reference points for gardening historians and private antiquarian collectors across the globe.
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