Firsts London 2025: Chelsea in Bloom - Books in Bloom!

Perfectly timed to coincide with the festivities sweeping along London's King's Road, Firsts London adds a literary dimension to the season’s celebrations. Once again hosted at Saatchi Gallery, this year's fair will shine a spotlight on floral and botanical works from the history of print, ranging from early herbals to striking contemporary art books

Alan Titchmarsh CBE, gardening writer, TV, passionate rare book collector and longstanding supporter of the fair reflects, “When it comes to flowers and books I am with Cicero who said, 'If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need.' I adore gardens and I love books - especially those about plants and gardens. I have collected such books for more than fifty years and Firsts brings together some of my favourites and many of the finest. The combination of fine binding, fine printing and botanical wisdom makes such books simply irresistible to me.”

The relationship between books and plants stretches back centuries, rich with both beauty and utility. What began with medieval herbal manuscripts meant for healing evolved into sophisticated botanical illustrations, bridging science and art. As global exploration flourished from the 15th century onward, new species of plants were discovered and documented, giving rise to a golden age of natural history and a bounty of exquisitely illustrated volumes, particularly during the Victorian period.

Literature too has long celebrated the natural world, with gardens and flora appearing in works from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. More ephemeral curiosities, like flower sprigs tucked between book pages or homemade seaweed albums, continue to capture imaginations. Decorative bindings adorned with floral motifs, as well as botanical prints, remain beloved both for their artistic and scientific value, turning books into objects of enduring beauty.

The fair is organised by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association and is one of the leading international rare book fairs.

See a list of all EXHIBITORS >> HERE

Firsts London is delighted to announce its partnership with Chelsea Physic Garden for the 2025 edition. Firsts London's partnership with London's oldest Botanic Garden this year perfectly complements the emphasis on material which showcases the best the international book trade has to offer in botanical, horticultural, decorative, and Natural History works.
Chelsea Physic Garden will have a presence throughout Firsts London, and visitors will be able to talk to members of their knowledgeable team about the garden's horticultural, educational, and research activities, as well as their collection of books and manuscripts. Speakers from the garden will also feature in the Firsts London 2025 talks programme. Ticket holders to Firsts London will have the opportunity to visit the nearby Chelsea Physic Garden at a discounted rate.

Daniel Crouch Rare Books will be bringing a wonderful map of the gardens, an accurate survey by John Haynes from 1753, the Chelsea Physic Garden's Georgian heyday. (£10,000)

Sharing some highlights 0f the 2025 fair

PY Rare Books has a wonderful copy of a first edition of the first work on the celebrated Russian ornaments for textiles - an important study, by the leading and polyvalent art historian, Vladimir Stasov (1824-1906), published in 1872. The beautifully illustrated book with 80 striking full-page colour plates carries an asking price of £2,250.

A superb binding of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' and 'What Alice Found There' in two volumes by Charles Elsden Gladstone (1855-1919) can be found at Lucius Books for £20,000.

'The Ladies' Flower Garden of Ornamental Bulbous Plants' by Mrs Loudon will be available at Robert Frew for £8,500.

Delineations of Exotick Plants cultivated in the Royal Garden at Kew by Francis Bauer
will be available at Marshall Rare Books. This first edition, with the especially rare third
part of which only 50 copies were printed, includes Bauer’s stunning depictions of Ericas
grown at Kew from specimens collected by Francis Masson in the Cape Colony. The
three volumes include 30 hand-coloured etched plates and they were published from
1796-1803. (£35,000).

Two of the top highlights among the botanical works are Basilius Besler's masterpiece, a first edition of The Hortus Eystettensis, the first great florilegium, printed in an edition of only 300 copies in 1613. Complete examples are rare, with only five copies appearing at auction over the last 40 years and Shapero Rare Books has one with a price tag of £300,000.
The book was overseen by Nuremberg apothecary Besler, who had been put in charge of the celebrated garden of Johann Konrad von Gemmingen, Prince Bishop of Eichstätt. Gemmingen spent three thousand florins on the book's production, which took sixteen years, with Besler himself making the drawings and a number of engravers employed, including Wolfgang Kilian, Raphael Custos, and Friedrich van Hulsen.

Peter Harrington has another outstanding highlight - a second edition of The Natural History of Carolina, Florida. and the Bahama Islands by Mark Catesby (£275,000), who grew up in Suffolk, and often visited John Ray, the leading English naturalist of the day across the border in Essex. He first went to America and the Caribbean in 1712, in the company of his oldest sister, who was married to the secretary of the colony of Virginia. While there, he collected plants, sending pressed specimens back to England and returning home in 1717. Five years after Catesby's death in 1749, his colleague George Edwards printed a second edition which is often referred to as the best due to the more brightly coloured plates. (Also note talk on Saturday at 1.30pm on this subject)

Firsts London Opening Times:
Thursday, 15 May 5pm to 9pm (VIP tickets)
Friday, 16 May 11am to 8pm
Saturday, 17 May 11am to 6pm
Sunday, 18 May 11am to 5pm

Location:
Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York's Square, King's Road, London SW3 4RY

Tickets:
Book your digital ticket to Firsts London using this portal: https://firsts.artsvp.com/f44c...
Please note that Sunday is free entry for all, but you can register for reminders and updates.

We look forward to welcoming you to Firsts, London's Rare Book Fair!
All information at: https://www.firstslondon.com/