Nature's Apothecary

Name: Nature's Apothecary
Price: 49.99 AUD
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ISBN: 9781851246694

Margaret Willes

$49.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Bodleian Library
02 July 2026

Botany & plant sciences; Gardening

Beautifully illustrated throughout, this book shows the social, cultural and historical importance of plants and their role in both formal and folk medicine.

Herbs have been used for centuries to cure all manner of ailments. They were especially important as home remedies for the many people without access to a trained physician before the advent of affordable healthcare. In the Middle Ages, monastery gardens were used to cultivate plants to treat not only their own house, but also the secular community that surrounded them. Information about the medicinal properties of plants was gathered into books known as herbals, which gained a much increased audience with the advent of printing.

Nature's Apothecary features a selection of 100 plants showing how not only herbs but also flowers, fruit and vegetables have been used in different ways for medicinal purposes. Exquisite colour illustrations from the renowned Herball by John Gerard, first published in 1597, accompany short narratives describing the social, cultural and historical importance of plants growing naturally in the hedgerows and meadows, and in gardens, as well as more exotic flowers from further afield, drawn from the writings of a range of herbalists including John Gerard, Nicholas Culpeper and Elizabeth Blackwell. Together, they give a fascinating history of nature's extraordinary role in both formal and folk medicine.

By: Margaret Willes
Imprint: Bodleian Library
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 161mm,
ISBN: 9781851246694
ISBN 10: 185124669X
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 02 July 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Margaret Willes is the author of Pick of the Bunch: The Story of Twelve Treasured Flowers (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2009), A Shakespearean Botanical (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2015) and The Domestic Herbal: Plants for the Home in the Seventeenth Century (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2020).