Employed early in his career by Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist John Lindley (1799-1865) is best known for his recommendation that Kew Gardens should become a national botanical institution, and for saving the Royal Horticultural Society from financial disaster. As an author, he is best remembered for his works on taxonomy and classification. A partisan of the 'natural' system of Jussieu rather than the Linnaean, Lindley writes, in his preface to this 1830 work, that it was originally created for his own use, to avoid having recourse to 'rare, costly and expensive publications' available only in the libraries of the wealthy. His intention is to give a 'systematic view of the organisation, natural affinities, and geographical distribution of the whole vegetable kingdom', as well as of the uses of plants 'in medicine, the arts, and rural or domestic economy'. The work is important in the history of taxonomy.

This is the second of a pair of volumes publishing the unedited full reports of Robert Schomburgk's travels in Guiana between 1835 and 1844, previously available only in greatly abridged and heavily edited versions. It covers the journeys made by Schomburgk when surveying and establishing the boundaries of British Guiana, now Guyana, between 1841 and 1843.

Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911) was an internationally renowned botanist, a close friend and early supporter of Charles Darwin, and one of the first—and most successful—British men of science to become a full-time professional. He was also, Jim Endersby argues, the perfect embodiment of Victorian science. A vivid picture of the complex interrelationships of scientific work and scientific ideas, Imperial Nature gracefully uses one individual’s career to illustrate the changing world of science in the Victorian era. By analyzing Hooker’s career, Endersby offers vivid insights into the everyday activities of nineteenth-century naturalists, considering matters as diverse as botanical illustration and microscopy, classification, and specimen transportation and storage, to reveal what they actually did, how they earned a living, and what drove their scientific theories. What emerges is a rare glimpse of Victorian scientific practices in action. By focusing on science’s material practices and one of its foremost practitioners, Endersby ably links concerns about empire, professionalism, and philosophical practices to the forging of a nineteenth-century scientific identity.

This is the second of a pair of volumes publishing the unedited full reports of Schomburgk's travels in Guiana between 1835 and 1844, previously available only in greatly abridged and heavily edited versions. After his explorations in Guiana between 1835 and 1839 on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society, which are the subject of Volume I of The Guiana Travels of Robert Schomburgk 1835-1844, Robert Schomburgk travelled to London. He was appointed Her Majesty's Commissioner for Boundaries with the duty to survey the boundaries of British Guiana, hitherto undefined. His surveys between 1841 and 1843 consisted of three journeys. The first took him to the mouth of the Orinoco River, from where he traced the boundary south-westward to the Cuyuni River, before returning to Georgetown. The second journey involved the survey of the boundary with Brazil: first, south to the sources of the Takutu River; and then north to Mount Roraima. In the third he covered the boundary with Dutch Guiana (modern Surinam), which involved an arduous trip down the length of the Corentyne River. Schomburgk returned to London in 1844 and was knighted for his services. Volume II of The Guiana Travels contains his reports of these journeys. In abbreviated form they appeared in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. Here they are published in full, including the material censored by the Colonial Office, which mainly details abuses of the native population committed by Venezuelans and Brazilians. In an 'Epilogue' an account is provided of his later career. The volume also includes two appendices: a summary of the boundary disputes which arose as a result of Schomburgk's survey and a vocabulary of vernacular plant names.