Walker-Arnott Collection

970 volumes of botanical literature including some of the finest examples of 18th and 19th-century illustrated flower books, such as:

• William Curtis’s Flora Londinensis
• Peter Simon Pallas’s Flora Rossica
• Charles Louis L’Héritier de Brutelle’s Stirpes novae (with plates by Redouté).

The collection, formed by George Arnott Walker-Arnott (1799-1868), Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow, was purchased by the University from the Walker-Arnott trustees in 1869 for the sum of £700. Regrettably the books were not kept together as a single collection; many of them have been incorporated into the stock of the Special Collections Department, while other volumes from the collection are housed in the Library Research Annexe.

Several of Walker-Arnott's books are rubber stamped with the name 'Arlary' - the name of his house in Kinross-shire.

How to find material in the Walker-Arnott Collection

• Browse through a list of the entire collection (including all items in Special Collections and the Library Research Annexe); or use the rare books search to locate a specific item. 
• Most of the books housed in Special Collections have been given the shelf-mark Sp Coll Arnott: browse through a list of titles; there are several books (including a number of plate books) that are scattered in the general runs of Special Collections material: browse through a list of titles.
• Browse through a list of manuscript material in the collection (consisting of loose pages of notes that were originally inserted in Arnott's books); or, use the manuscripts search to locate a specific item.
• Unpublished author catalogue available in the Special Collections Department (on the reference shelves in the reading room), showing the contents of the collection shortly after its receipt by the University.
• Great flower books: an exhibition, 15 March-22 April 1977 (Glasgow, 1977). Exhibition catalogue available for reference in Special Collections Department
• Perennial pages: flower illustration in books since the Renaissance (Glasgow, 1995). Virtual exhibition.

See also the following 'book of the month' articles that features an item from the Walker-Arnott collection:/p>

• Robert Thornton The Temple of Flora London: 1799-1807 (Book of the month: April 2000)