The Lasting Presence of Gerard's Herball

years. I say “person to person” because I think that is the essence of the preservation of
this work. On the face of it, such hand-to-hand transfer is obvious and trivial. Yet, why
and how does it occur? And what magic, if any, lies between the pages of Gerard’s
Herball? Why have people pored over this herbal, shared it, talked about it, written about
it, and hauled it into the woods?
Edmund Gosse makes an astute observation in Gossip in the Library (1891) as he
remarks on two characteristics of Gerard’s writing. Gerard is universally acclaimed for
his skilled use of language and for his charming insertion of personal anecdote about the
places where various plants can be found. The first characteristic is somewhat bound by
time—most of us are unfamiliar with Elizabethan English and find it awkward to read.
The second characteristic, on the other hand, is everlasting. Gosse mentions that he “was
examining fresh varieties of auricular in ‘the gardens of Mr. Tradescant and Mr. Tuggie’
[quoting Gerard]” (p.73). Then he remarks, “It is wonderful how modern the latter
statement sounds…the garden seems the one spot on earth where history does not assert
itself…” (pp.73,74). Gosse has noticed a thread stretching from Gerard into his time; we,
the reader, can pick up the frayed end again in our own day. On that thread hangs the key
to beloved garden writing: the sharing of personal observation. My intention is to
explore the ways in which the sharing of personal observation figures in the lasting
presence of Gerard’s Herball. I believe a blending of influence occurs, as people over
the centuries have impacted Gerard’s work as much as the other way around.
II. Gerard and two herbals
John Gerard was born in Nantwich in Cheshire in 1545 and died in London in 1612.
Most British herbalists were either physicians (barber-surgeons) or pharmacists
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