Flowers of the Greenhouses and Gardens of Europe, 19th C

Golden Esperen plum.
From Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l’Europe (Flowers of the Greenhouses and Gardens of Europe) vol. 4, by Charles Lemaire, Michael Scheidweiler, and Louis van Houtte, Ghent, 1848.

Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe ('Flowers of the Greenhouses and Gardens of Europe') was one of the finest horticulture journals produced in Europe during the 19th century, spanning 23 volumes and over 2000 coloured plates with French, German and English text. Founded by Louis van Houtte and edited together with Charles Antoine Lemaire and Michael Joseph François Scheidweiler, it was a showcase for lavish hand-finished engravings and lithographs depicting and describing botanical curiosities and treasures from around the world.

The work is remarkable for the level of colour-printing craftmanship displayed by the Belgian lithographers Severeyns, Stroobant, and De Pannemaker. Louis-Constantin Stroobant (1814-1872), printed many of the illustrations for the first 10 volumes. Most of the plants depicted in Flore des Serres were available for sale in van Houtte's nursery, so that in a sense the journal doubled as a catalogue.

The editors were experienced botanical engravers and horticulturists, combining their knowledge and skills to create a showpiece of novel exotics and familiar cultivated plants. Lemaire came from being an engraver for Redoute's great works Les Liliaces and Les Roses. van Houtte, owner of the most successful nursery on the Continent at that time, sent his own plant explorers to find unknown orchids and other exotics, and to return them to Ghent for cultivation at his nursery, and later publication in Flore des Serres.

Paphiopedilum lowii (syn. cypripedium lowii)

Primula auricula nigra

American Starthistle (Centaurea americana)

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea, syn. Echinacea intermedia)

Master of the World, 20th C (Maître du monde)

The mere thought that L’Épouvante could compete with eagles…
Georges Roux, from Maître du monde (Master of the world), by jules Verne, Paris, 1902.

Master of the World (French: Maître du monde), published in 1904; is one of the last novels by french pioneer science fiction writer, Jules Verne. It is a sequel to Robur the Conqueror. At the time Verne wrote the novel, his health was failing. 

Master of the World is a "black novel" filled with foreboding and fear of the rise of tyrants (Well, great intuition as 1st&2nd world war were approaching at that time...)

Perhaps its author himself, sneaking up…
Georges Roux, from Maître du monde (Master of the world), by Jules Verne, Paris, 1902.

Set in the summer of 1903, a series of unexplained events occur across the eastern United States, caused by objects moving with such great speed that they are nearly invisible. The first-person narrator John Strock, 'Head inspector in the federal police department' in Washington, DC, travels to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina -yes the place really exists, link provided- to investigate. 

He discovers that all the phenomena are being caused by Robur, a brilliant inventor. (He was previously featured as a character in Verne's Robur the Conqueror.)

Robur has perfected a new machine, the Terror. It is ten-meter long vehicle, capable of operating as a speedboat, submarine, automobile, or aircraft. It can travel at the unheard of speed of 150 miles per hour on land and at more than 200 mph when flying.

Strock tries to capture the Terror but instead is captured himself. Robur drives the strange craft to elude his pursuers, heading to the Caribbean and into a thunderstorm. The Terror is struck by lightning and falls into the ocean. Strock is rescued from the vehicle's wreckage, but Robur's body is never found. The reader is left to decide whether or not he has died.

The public was tremendously excited about it.
Georges Roux (?), from Maître du monde (Master of the world), by jules Verne, Paris, 1902.

The waters of New England were troubled.
Georges Roux, from Maître du monde (Master of the world), by jules Verne, Paris, 1902.