Recollections of a Happy Life being the Autobiography of Marianne North

A prolific traveller and botanical artist, Marianne North visited Switzerland, Syria, Egypt, Sicily, Canada, the United States (where she voiced her concern for the destruction of Redwoods, while in California), and Jamaica. She spent a year in Brazil, working from a hut in the depths of the jungle. She visited Tenerife, Japan, Borneo, Ceylon and Java, painting the flora of these places. 1878 she spent entirely in India. On her return to Britain, she gave her collection of over 500 botanical oil paintings to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and erected a gallery to house them. Charles Darwin suggested she visit Australia, and this she did, spending a year there, painting. She met botanical artist Katharine Saunders in South Africa in 1883, She spent time in Chile and the Seychelles, until ill health forced her to return to Gloucestershire, where she died in 1890.

Octavo two volume second edition set, published 1892 by Macmillan and Co. Original green cloth, with gilt stamped spine titling, and gilt illustration of Nepenthes Northiana (a variety of pitcher plant named for Marianna North who was the first to depict it) on the front of each volume. Bookplate of a previous owner on front pastedown of each volume, volume one having a head and shoulder profile frontispiece portrait of the author, with an intact tissue guard, followed by a two page world map showing the territories visited by the author. Volume two contains a frontispiece portrait of the author at home, also with intact tissue guard.