Readers of our news features will remember our birthday fundraiser this March, which began with this book: Albrecht von Haller’s Nomenclator ex Historia plantarum indigenarum Helvetiae excerptus, 1769. Formerly owned by James Edward Smith, it now forms part of the core collections of the Linnean Society of London.
On the occasion of Type & Forme’s birthday, we collected funds to ‘adopt’ this book, i.e. sponsor its restoration.
The response exceeded our expectations, and thanks to a number of generous donations, we were also able to fund the conservation of the first volume of François-André Michaux’ famous work North American sylva – the first documentation of trees in North America and beyond.
We recently learned that volume 2 of the 3-volume set had received a separate donation, and just the final volume was awaiting similar care.
Therefore, we sent out another appeal for contributions towards the final volume’s conservation.
The search, we are very happy to report, was as short as it was successful: thanks to one generous donation made on the same day, Michaux’ North American sylva will now be restored in its entirety, and enlighten many generations of readers in the future.
All photographs courtesy of Will Beharrell, Linnean Society of London.
Both partners at Type & Forme, Dr Anke Timmermann and Mark James, are Fellows of the Linnean Society.
To learn more about the Society’s book adoption scheme, please go to AdoptLinn on the Linnean Society’s webpage.