KEMP, Edward. How to Lay Out a Small Garden: intended as a General Guide in Choosing, Forming, or Improving an Estate, (from a quarter of an acre to a hundred acres in extent,) with reference to both design and execution. Third edition; greatly enlarged, and illustrated with numerous plans, sections, and sketches of gardens and garden objects. xxxi, [1], 428pp., half-title., 249 illustrations in the text. A very good copy in original dark green gilt decorated cloth, with bookseller’s ticket of D. Wyllie & Son, and armorial book-plate of J.H. Adny. Just a little rubbed, slight wear to the corner tips, and some slight foxing to the end-papers. The best edition, greatly enlarged. Scarce. 8vo. Bradbury and Evans. 1864. £160.00 ~ Edward Kemp (1817-1891). His technical training was gained in the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at Chiswick, under Dr. Lindley, and subsequently in apprenticeship at Chatsworth under Sir Joseph Paxton. In September, 1843, at the age of twenty-five, he was made superintendent of Birkenhead Park, Liverpool, and the remainder of his life was closely connected with that particular enterprise. He designed a number of private places, several of which are illustrated and described in the various editions of his books. His debut as a writer came in 1850, when he put out a small volume under the title "How to Lay out a Small Garden." This was an important work and became a great influence on the high-Victorian Mixed Style of garden design. By its second edition (1858) it had dropped the word ‘small’ and become a widely influential manual on the design of country estates. Among his major commissions were Hesketh Park, Southport, and Stanley Park, Liverpool, in which he continued Paxton's later trend towards increasing formality of design and the use of viewing terraces within the park. The third edition is considered the best, published in a much larger size “enlarging the size of the page, and giving the work altogether a more practical aspect.” “A very comprehensive and carefully prepared alphabetical index is now appended....”