#000506
A Modern Herbal, Volume I (A-H)
Mrs. M. Grieve; edited by Mrs. C. F. Leyel
The first of two volumes of Maud Grieve's celebrated *A Modern Herbal*, this book runs alphabetically from A to H through hundreds of herbs, grasses, fungi, shrubs and trees. For each plant Grieve lays out its botanical description, cultivation, chemistry and the sweep of its medicinal, culinary, cosmetic and economic uses, all threaded with history and folklore. First published in 1931 and edited into shape by Hilda Leyel, it was the most complete English-language herbal since the seventeenth-century Culpeper, and it remains a beloved reference — as much a cultural record of how people once understood plants as a practical manual. It speaks to gardeners, cooks, herb enthusiasts and anyone charmed by the lore of the plant world.
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The author
"Mrs. M. Grieve" was Sophia Emma Magdalene Grieve (1858–1941), known as Maud, a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society who founded a medicinal herb school and farm at Chalfont St. Peter in Buckinghamshire. During and after the First World War — when imported drugs grew scarce — she wrote hundreds of pamphlets on individual plants. The editor Hilda Leyel gathered and expanded these, adding American herbs, into the single work published as A Modern Herbal.
The book
First published in 1931, A Modern Herbal is an alphabetical encyclopedia of some eight hundred to a thousand plants, cataloguing their medicinal, culinary, cosmetic and economic uses along with cultivation notes and a deep seam of folklore. It was hailed as the most comprehensive English herbal since Culpeper, and the Dover reprint has kept it in print for generations. This is Volume I (A–H).
How it has aged
Its value now is historical and botanical rather than medical: it is a magnificent record of early-twentieth-century herb lore, prized by gardeners, historians and herbalists for its detail and charm. But its remedies reflect 1931 knowledge, and some plants it discusses are toxic or interact with modern drugs. Read it for pleasure and reference, not as a prescription.
For more context
The full text is freely available online at botanical.com; pair it with a current, evidence-based guide before using any plant medicinally.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Mrs. M. Grieve; edited by Mrs. C. F. Leyel
- Publisher
- Dover Publications
- Place of publication
- New York
- Year
- 1931
- Edition
- Dover reprint
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Reference
- Location
- Colorado