In her recent book Nature’s Apothecary Margaret selected one hundred plants and showed how they have been used medicinally and socially over the centuries. Her talk will concentrate on a few of these, with illustrations from John Gerard’s herbal of 1597. Gerard’s publisher, John Norton, was so delighted when he had printed copies that he had one hand coloured and presented it to Sir Thomas Bodley for his new library in Oxford. Some of these illustrations will accompany her talk. Some of the Gibson Library’s Herbals will be on display on the evening of the talk.

Margaret was the Publisher for the National Trust until the organisation decided to relocate to Swindon, and she decided to retire and to write books. Her first book was Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books, and books sit at the heart of her subsequent titles, including A Shakespearean Botanical, where the beauty of the playwright’s lines are married with exquisite illustrations from John Gerard’s herbal of 1597. More of these illustrations from Gerard’s herbal also feature in her most recent book, Nature’s Apothecary.