New impression: colour frontispiece, distribution map, plans, numerous full page & other colour illustrations, olive green cloth with oval shaped colour illustration of roses laid down on upper cover, a very good copy in the dust jacket. Signed by the author and photographer on the title page.
Editor's Note on the dust jacket: 'This book is about old roses at the Cape by an author deeply involved with the places and people associated with them.
The period it covers dates from the moment when Commander Jan van Riebeeck picked the first Dutch rose on 1 November 1657 until the formation of Union in 1910, by which time the new Hybrid Teas were beginning to oust old roses from Cape gardens.
It all began for Gwen Fagan when a consignment of roses arrived from Kew in 1968. These were intended for Government House, being restored at the time by the author's husband, architect Gabriel Fagan, but later ended up at the Cape Dutch farm, Boschendal. By this time the roses had lost their labels and the difficult task of renaming them had to be undertaken.
Her interest awakened, Gwen Fagan gradually became obsessed with identifying the many old roses which she started collecting from mission villages, cemeteries, farms and small towns in the hidden corners of the Cape Province.
For in the Cape, the author discovered, a flourishing rose industry had once existed. From old documents in archives, libraries and herbaria it transpired that the Dutch East India Company had for more than a century exported rose products to the East from the Cape.
In pursuit of her subject the author visited heritage rose gardens in Britain, France, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, India and the Seychelles and was rewarded by finding rare roses growing in abundance on the islands of Réunion and Mauritius.
Originally planned as a small brochure for visitors to Boschendal, where Gwen Fagan has established a thriving heritage rose garden from her collection, this book gradually grew to become a comprehensive history of old roses at the Cape.
Apart from an extensive general discussion, each rose receives a detailed botanical description. The unique series of some two hundred full-scale photographs, taken by the author's husband, presents the form, colour, and growth pattern of the specimens with the realism of the camera and the clarity of the classic botanic illustrators.
Further photographs – taken by the author and her husband – show the roses in their beautiful Cape setting.'
- Overall Condition: Very good
- Size: Tall 4to (245 x 250 mm)
