BOTANICS - Regnault, Nicolas-François. La Botanique mise à la portée de tout le monde ou collection des plantes d'usage dans la médecine, dans les alimens et dans les arts. 3 volumes. With 3 engraved and old coloured title pages. Title-pages, 1 eng. Leaf "Introduction" and 472 old col. Copper plates. Paris, Chez l'auteur et Didot le jeune (I/II), [1770-] 1774 [-1780]. Large folio (49 × 34 cm). Each plate (except for the systematic 1-3) with 1 sheet of text. Text, plus 1 sheet. "Avertissement" and 1 sheet. "Ordre de la disposition périodique " in I as well as 12, 3 pp. "Table" with privilege in III. Modern master bindings (signed D. Saporito) in dark green marocco, each with 3 red spine labels, floral spine gilt, gilt-stamped cover fillets, gilt inner edges and marbled endpapers, old red edges preserved. Sotheby's, Plesch 634 (this copy, in restored calf before the splendid new binding) - Nisse, BBI 1600 - Stafleu-C. 8810 - Dunthorne 256 - not in Hunt. - Only edition, "perhaps the most impressive French botanical book of the period [...] deals with useful and decorative plants; and the author engagingly describes the potato" (Blunt, The Art of botanical Illustration, p. 152). - The bookplate of Arpad Plesch preserved on the inside cover of volume I. According to the auction catalogue of his collection (1976), the copy contains the maximum verifiable number of plates of 472 (Brunet IV, 1186/7 gives up to 475 plates, presumably including the 3 copper titles). "This copy contains various ms. additions to the indices and also a ms. continuation of the Ordre de la disposition [in I, not bound with all copies], which continues the listing of the contents of the parts until the completion of the work. Also transcribed is an (unpublished?) Avis from the author to the subscribers" (Plesch). The handwritten expansion of the concluding "Table des noms des plantes" from 3 to 13 pages refers to the pagination of plates and text leaves in all volumes by the same hand in brown pen. This early owner is not identical with Samuel Wood, whose ownership note dated 1832 can be found at the head of the copper titles. - The incomplete original binding of the Plesch copy is preserved in volume III: Denis Dodart. Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des plantes. 38 (of 39) copper plates with spine text (without frontispiece and further text). Paris, Imprimerie Royale, [1675/76]. - Nissen, BBI 502 - not in Stafleu-C. - Wide margins, evenly slightly browned, scattered stains. OVERVIEW???? The Plesch Copy