J. J. Grandville's Les fleurs animées (1847) provides very little scientific information, but is one of the most bizarrely charming of all 19th-century illustrated books. In it, a great caricaturist has drawn fashionable French ladies as lovely, wilting wildflowers or sinister poisonous herbs. The plate for the Narcissus shows a daffodil happily absorbed by her image a pond. In another, a frowning Hemlock, personified with mortar and pestle, prepares dangerous concoctions for her friends; a little frog has already died; a small mouse vomits; and a rabbit dressed as a Roman senator happily swallows his dose.
Content: 'Une malice de la fée aux fleurs'(facetious history and fable of tobacco): p. [61]-66 and plate facing p. 66 (1st group). 'Sensitive' plate facing p. 271) shows beetle smoking. 'Erratum' (plate facing p. 362) shows tobacco personified. "Tabac ... De grace donc, meadames, mesdames, point de tabac, máeme en fleur': p. 127 (3rd group). 'Botanique des dames' and 'Horticulture des dames': iv, 132 p. at end of vol. 2, signed: Cte. Felix (i.e. L.F. Raban).
Content: Added wood-engraved title pages, illustrated in colors.
Content: In the original green cloth, with gilt design after motives in the book, signed: J.J. Grandville, Peau.
Statement of responsibility: Plates engraved on steel by C. M. Geoffroy after Grandville.
Citation/reference: Vicaire: Manuel de l'amateur de livres du XIX siècle, III, 133-134 // Carteret: Tréssor du bibliophile, III, 286
Statement of responsibility: par J.-J. Grandville ; introductions par Alph. Karr ; texte par Taxile Delord.