Letter 0562

Ray writes that he is awaiting a response from Mr Smith regarding whether he will publish Ray’s Supplement. He is unsure if it will sell. Ray believes his Supplement’s best selling point are its descriptions of plants not yet cataloged, but he acknowledges that his work has no illustrations, so it will only appeal to ‘proficient’ botanists. Ray was a theologian and naturalist who collected and catalogued his botanical findings in the much lauded Historia plantarum (1686, 1688) (Scott Mandelbrote, Ray , John (16271705), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23203, accessed 18 June 2013]).