James Sowerby - Bibliography

Bibliography

James Sowerby produced a large corpus of work that appeared in many different publications and journals. Some of the works begun by the paterfamilias of the Sowerby's was to be completed only by the generations that followed. His illustrations, publication and publishing concerns embraced many of the emergent fields of science. Besides the renowned botanical works, Sowerby produced extensive volumes on mycology, conchology, mineralogy and a seminal work on his colour system. He also wrote an instruction called A botanical drawing-book, or an easy introduction to drawing flowers according to nature.

• Florist's luxurians or the florist's delight, and;
• Sibthrop's Flora Graeca, 10 vols. 1806-40.
• Sowerby also supplied plates for Curtis's Flora Londinensis.
• English Botany or, Coloured Figures of British Plants, with their Essential Characters, Synonyms and Places of Growth, descriptions supplied by Sir James E. Smith, was issued as a part work over 23 years until its completion in 1813. This work was issued in 36 volumes with 2,592 hand-colored plates of British plants. He also published Exotic Botany in 1804.
• Smith's comprehensive work did not include Kingdom Fungi, Sowerby set out to supplement English Botany with his own text and descriptions. Coloured figures of English fungi or mushrooms, 4 vols. both appeared between 1789 and 1791.
• A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland Written by James Edward Smith and illustrated by James Sowerby, it was published by Sowerby between 1793 and 1795, becoming the first monograph on the Flora of Australia. It was prefaced with the intention of meeting the general interest in, and propagation of, the flowering species of the new antipodean colonies, while also containing a Latin and botanical description of the sample. Sowerby's own hand coloured engravings, based upon original sketches and specimens brought to England, were both descriptive and striking in depiction.
• Mineral Conchology of Great Britain Digital version
• British Mineralogy: Or Coloured figures intended to elucidate the mineralogy of Great Britain (R. Taylor and co., London) was published as parts between 1802 and 1817.
• Exotic Mineralogy: Or Coloured Figures of Foreign Minerals, as a Supplement to British Mineralogy (1811), followed British Mineralogy and the scope was extended to include American specimens. Issued by subscription, the work ran to two volumes that comprised an incomplete 27 parts. Descriptions of rarities held in the 'mineral cabinets' of many notable collectors included 167 plates, brilliantly coloured by Sowerby and his family.
• A New Elucidation of Colours, Original Prismatic and Material: Showing Their Concordance in the Three Primitives, Yellow, Red and Blue: and the Means of Producing, Measuring and Mixing Them: with some Observations on the Accuracy of Sir Isaac Newton, London 1809. This work, given in homage to Isaac Newton, was to establish the importance of 'light and dark' in colour theory. He presents a theory of colour being composed of three basic colours: red, yellow and blue. Yellow, or gamboge as he had it, would become substituted by green in the later colour systems on which is what was based.
• Familiar Lessons on Mineralogy and Geology (digital version), and other publications by John Mawe.