HERBIER de Bibliothèque PARIS Michel ENGEL, Relieur. Breveté. (1890). (Library HERBARIUM  PARIS Michel Engel, Binder. Patented) folio, 32 pages interleaved with grey blotting paper, all with botanical samples attached to the papes, several to each pages, most identified on gummed tags (provided in a folder kept in a pocket adhered to the inside rear cover).

One sample has a label identified as Cannabis, genus Hemp, annual, gathered in Villeurbanne at a friend of Mlle Roc. One page wit a fancy larger label informs the reader that “Hellenic Hospital Alexandria, November 18, 18 91 - 93. These flowers are all the more precious that it is my dear father who picked them.”

Michel Engel, the bookbinder creator of this herbarium, targeted women for costumers and buyers as it is evident in the first sentences presenting his work:
from google translate:

”What a delicious and simple word! Herbarium. How many various thoughts it evokes in us. We all had a herbarium. You all had one, Mesdames et Mesdemoiselles; Because, it is not necessary to be a scholarly botanist to preserve desiccated flowers ………The living flower is the ornament of our festors, the adornment of our women and our daughters, the most secret expression of our feelings. Is there not the language of flowers, both silent and eloquent language, that everyone understands without having ever learned………
Women, more than men, raise intimate altars to their old memories. For them, it's a religion. In the discreet herbarium they will carefully place all the flowers they have brought to their belt. Here is the pretty eyelet we gave her the day when for the first time she was a godmother, this white lilac strand reminds her of her first communion, this lily of the valley comes from the bouquet of engagement, this orange blossom pinner on the bride’s gown, this rose dates from the birth of her firstborn”

Offered for sale by Denis Gouey of 'And Books Too' - for more information please contact him via email at bibliopegist@yahoo.com or text  8605425813