The Villa Gardener: Comprising the Choice of a Suburban Villa Residence; the Laying Out, Planting, and Culture of the Garden and Grounds; and the Management of the Villa Farm, Including the Dairy and Poultry-Yard. Adapted, in Extent, for Grounds from One Perch to Fifty Acres and Upwards. and Intended for the Instruction of Those Who Know Little of Gardening and Rural Affairs, and More Particularly for the Use of Ladies

London: Wm. S. Orr & Co, 1850. Second Edition. Hard Cover. Good/No Jacket. Second edition. Spine toned, corners rubbed with minor loss from spine ends, rear hinge weakening. 1850 Hard Cover. xii, 516 pp. 8vo. Green blind-stamped cloth, gilt titles and decorations. Numerous engraved illustrations throughout text. John Claudius Loudon was a 'landscape gardener and horticultural writer... In 1826 Loudon began publishing the Gardener's Magazine... [which] became a forum for the exchange of ideas on gardening on a national scale; it also served as Loudon's main forum for promoting his ideas on a variety of subjects. He recounted in it his various journeys around Great Britain, describing the gardens he visited and commenting freely on how they could be improved. In 1829 he published in it articles recommending a national system of education, workers' dwellings, and a plan for the controlled expansion of London through concentric circles of alternating open space and residential and commercial development. The Gardener's Magazine was not Loudon's only venture in periodical publication. Between 1828 and 1836 he edited the Magazine of Natural History, and between 1834 and 1839 the Architectural Magazine, which provided the young John Ruskin's first opportunity at publication. In 1830 Loudon also launched a folio publication, Illustrations of Landscape-Gardening and Garden Architecture, but this was poorly subscribed to and was discontinued after its third number in 1833... 1828 saw Loudon's third continental tour, in France and Germany. In 1829 came the first of his important botanical publications: An Encyclopaedia of Plants, with the botanical text contributed by John Lindley. This was followed in 1830 by Hortus Britannicus and an anonymous Manual of Cottage Gardening, and in 1832 - 3 by An Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture. In 1835 Loudon designed a small public garden at an unnamed location, which has been identified as Gravesend, Kent; the site, although built over in the 1870s, marked his practical involvement with the movement in favour of creating public walks and gardens for the country's congested towns. In 1839 he was commissioned by Joseph Strutt to design a public garden for Derby; the 11 acre Derby Arboretum was opened in 1840, and Loudon published a book about its design in the same year. Two publishing projects occupied Loudon between the years 1836 and 1838. The first of these was The Suburban Gardener and Villa Companion (1838). Much of the material had been published in the Gardener's Magazine; additional material from that source was included in the second, posthumous, edition of 1850 (retitled The Villa Gardener). A sequel devoted to practical gardening, mostly dealing with the kitchen garden, was published in 1842 as The Suburban Horticulturist. The second project was the Arboretum et fruticetum Britannicum (1838), a survey on a scale never before attempted of all the trees grown in the British Isles, whether native or exotic. Again, John Lindley provided botanical assistance. The illustrations for the Arboretum required the employment of seven artists, including James De Carle Sowerby and G. R. Lewis and H. W. Jukes, both of whom were employed by the owners of the estates where the trees were drawn. Even with Jane acting as amanuensis, the expenses of its production left Loudon £10,000 in debt. He placed his other publications in Longmans' hands as a pledge for the debt, and, by the end of 1841, when financial depression hit the book trade, the debt was reduced to £2600. Loudon compiled two smaller publications from the text of the Arboretum: the Hortus lignosus Londinensis (1838) and the Encyclopaedia of Trees and Shrubs (1842). In 1840, besides another continental tour, Loudon undertook the editing, in a handy, inexpensive, and pocket-sized volume, of The Landscape Gardening and Landscape Architecture of the Late Humphry Repton. He also, for several months in 1840 - 41, conducted the horticultural department of the weekly newspaper the Gardener's Gazette, founded in 1837 by his rival George Glenny, who had been ousted from editorship by the publishers. (Inventory #: 2347069)