A Compleat Herbal

James Newton's folio herbal shows the plants themselves: copperplate engravings of everything an eighteenth-century physician or gardener might need to recognise, from asphodels and adder's tongue to the mandrake and the mulberry.

This site is the complete 1752 book A Compleat Herbal, page by page as originally printed — period spelling, remedies and opinions included. About this edition →

The Plates

The herbal’s 171 copperplate engravings, shown large — and the book’s own index of plants to find them by.

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◆ A Cabinet of Curiosities ◆

The Physick Garden

What eighteenth-century England called its plants, and what that tells you.

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Browse the Book

The Plates

171 engraved plates, each shown large on its own page

The Plant Index

The book's own index of plant names, linked to the plates

A Catalogue of the Authors

The authors quoted in the herbal, and what country they were of

The Physick Garden

What eighteenth-century England called its plants, and what that tells you

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Rights & ReuseThe complete text of A Compleat Herbal (1752) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.