April, 1994

An Oak Spring Pomona by Sandra Raphael. Published 1990 by Oak Spring Garden Library, Upperville, VA 22176. Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. Quarto. 310 pages. 100 black & white illustrations. 70 color plates. ISBN 0-300-04936-6. Price $60.00.

POMONA, the fruit enamoured nymph in classical mythology, anthropomorphizes this book about books and fruit. Although introduced as a catalogue, it is much more: a collection of mini-monographs describing and illustrating one hundred fruit books and a few original illustrations in the library of Rachel Lambert (Mrs. Paul) Mellon. An unusually well manufactured work, it features long-life paper, an immaculate lay-out, attractive fonts and typography, cloth binding, and superb black-and-white and coloured reproductions. A cordon-and-espalier fruit wall taken from L. Noisette's Le jardin fruitier, 1821, graces the dust-wrap.

The author cum researcher, Sandra Raphael, is a professional British bibliographer, writer, and editor in Natural History. She has co-authored The Illustrated Herbal, 1979, and recently on behalf of Mrs. Mellon, authored An Oak Spring Sylvia, 1989, cataloguing and describing books on forest and ornamental trees. With An Oak Spring Pomona she has obviously entered a novel field but does full justice to the fruit literature at hand.

The physical description of each work starts with a fully transcribed title page. A standard formula collation and an appreciation of the binding follow. Occasionally the provenance of a copy will be traced. Each volume embellished by plates or test engravings has number, proces, subjects, artists, signatures expertly reported.

In the main text following the small print physical description, Sandra Raphael places an author in his or her pomological niche including biographical details. Worthwhile information gathered from title, dedication, and contents pages is usually added. Where called for she proves herself an expert bibliographical sleuth. It gets exciting, for instance, where she explores the Library's three coloured copies of H. L. Duhamel's Trait des arbres fruitiers, 1768. Not only are coloured copies rare - one of the three cost 6,500 Pound Sterling in 1975 - they were coloured by three dissimilar artists, an ideal constellation for research. Undescribed writings of an author may be discussed, merely mentioned, or ignored if not in the Library. Quote from a work, occasionally lengthy, may round out the presentation.

A pomological votartist tracing fruit growing writers, their practices, and cultivars will find not a few favourites, starting with M. Bussato's Giardino of 1612, concluding with R. Hogg's and H. G. Bull's Herefordshire Pomona in 1885. In the first section the arrangement of the titles, two thirds of them in English, is by country of origin: France and Britain (46), "elsewhere" in Europe (7), America (13). The second section has been arranged topically by fruits: citrus (10), apples and pears (9), peaches and soft fruit (5), grapes (6), melons (1), and tropical fruits (3).

Jean de La Ouintinye's Instruction pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers, 1690, opens the catalogue, emphasizing the historical importance of France's fruit expertise. English translations are next followed by some precursors and numerous successors.

I discovered many an old favourite: L. Mascall, W. Lawson, R. Austen, N. de Bonnefons (in J. Evelyn's translation), S. Switzer, B. Langley, H. L. Duhamel, A. Poiteau, W. Hooker, J. Lindley. The America chapter describes the works by W. Coxe, R. Manning, A. Hoffy, A. J. Downing, and C. H. Hovey, among minor fruitists. We also learn in detail about those colourful fruit specimen books which had been published en masse in Rochester, NY, as sales aids for travelling nurserymen. The illustrated pear culturist, 1857, another North American entry, could only be physically described. Its author remains a mystery.

The second section introduces some prominent fruit specialists among them G. B. Ferrari, J. Commelin, J. Philips, T. A. Knight, H. Ronalds, J. S. Kerner, and two Americans, W. R. Prince and T. W. Field.

This company of pomological worthies has been uniquely enriched by various fruit portraitists, notably Miss S. M. Parry whose unpublished paintings are described in detail. A tawdry touch is present with the plagiarist C. Cotton (The planters manual), the fictitious Ch. Evelyn (The lady's recreation), the ignoramus L. Liger (Culture parfaite des jardins fruitiers), and the trivial but unnamed L. Jauffret (Le panier de fruits).

Accidents happen when the cataloguer strays from the refined library ambience into the fruit garden, Pomona’s complex realm. Distinctions between grafting and planting, between the 'Louise Bonne' and the 'Bonne Louise' pears, between originating, developing, and documenting a cultivar are mandatory in my view. With uninformed railleries at Edward Bunyard (p. 101), the author easily disqualifies as a fruit connoisseur. Pomological faux pas, however cannot detract from an outstanding bibliographic achievement.

Even so, be not tempted to see in An Oak Spring Pomona a quintessential fruit book reference. It reflects Sandra Raphael's professional criteria, her employers' phytobibliophil leanings, and a library with strengths and weaknesses.

One is not surprised at an eclectic stance which seeks out well and artistically illustrated works more than the often sparsely embellished ones of pomological pioneers. Robert Hogg, co-author of The Herefordshire Pomona, one of these glamourous works, points out that they "...are all of such a class, as from their great cost to be regarded more as works of art, than of general utility." (The apple. 1859). We miss his own scholarly The Fruit Manual together with the writings of other pace-setters, from A. Venuto's Notensis de agricultura, 1512, the first printed fruit book, to the six-volume Dictionnaire de pomologie, 1867-1879, by Hogg's learned contemporary Andre Leroy. Among other absentees of pomological prominence are J. Le Paulmier, D. Rhagor, J. Bauhin, A. Le Gendre, G. Soderini, H. Van Ooston, the Carthusians with their nursery catalogues, W. J. Duemler, J. Gibson, Brother Gentil, Abbe Schabol, J. V. Sickler, A. F. A. Diel, C. Butret, and the fruit rich collective works from P. de Crescenzi and C. Estienne to Abbe Rozier.

But regardless of what it is not, The Oak Spring Pomona turns into a fascinating source once you open it. No fruit book lover should be without it.

J. Rea. Flora, Seu de Florum Cultura. 1676