An Oak Spring Sylvia, A Selection of the Rare Books on Trees in the Oak Spring Garden Library.

An Oak Spring Sylva is the first of a series of discursive catalogues describing selections of the rare books and other material in the Oak Spring Garden Library, a collection formed by Mrs. Paul Mellon. Each volume in the Oak Spring series will be a lovely and useful compendium for book collectors, librarians, and garden historians. This volume, which deals with books and manuscripts on trees, describes nearly fifty books, manuscripts, or drawings, from a tiny 1555 book on oaks to early nineteenth-century advice manuals on large-scale tree planting.

Sandra Raphael is a writer and editor who has been studying the bibliography and history of natural history for many years. Her earlier work includes The Illustrated Herbal (a collaboration with Wilfrid Blunt, published in 1979) and articles on botanical illustration, herbals, plant collecting, nurserymen, and other subjects in The Oxford Companion to Gardens (1986). From 1969 to 1983 she was also a senior editor on the staff of A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary (1972-86), dealing with natural history and bibliographical research. She still lives in Oxford, where she cultivates a small, extremely informal garden furnished with interesting plants from other people's domains, acquired in constant exchanges with gardeners who share her taste.