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Library

Oak Spring Garden Library

“These books about the outdoors live not in dusty darkness, but behind simple, pale oak doors, easily opened to the world they tell about.”
— Bunny Mellon
Library Interior Window.jpg

Bunny Mellon’s celebrated Oak Spring Garden Library comprises a collection of over 19,000 objects, including rare books, manuscripts, and works of art dating back to the 14th century. The collection mainly encompasses works relating to horticulture, landscape design, botany, natural history and voyages of exploration. There are also components relating to architecture, decorative arts, and classical literature.

Bunny Mellon’s collecting, guided by precise objectives and unerring taste, led to the acquisition of some of the most significant works in the history of botany, botanical illustration, and garden and landscape design – not only the most beautiful but also those of the greatest historical and cultural importance – at a time when the field was still only of tangential interest to botanists, historians, and art historians.

 

To search our catalog and view digitized items from the Oak Spring Garden Library, visit our collections page here.

Oak Spring Garden Library

In-Person Access

Authors and scholars are able to access the collection in person by application and appointment only. OSGF also works with partners and curators to exhibit select materials at off-site locations, and offers a Stacy Lloyd III Fellowship for Bibliographic Study to an outstanding early-career scholar every year.

Oak Spring Catalogues

The Oak Spring Garden Library has published four discursive catalogs that are accessible for free as digital books and available for purchase in hard copy. An Oak Spring Sylva (1989), An Oak Spring Pomona (1990), An Oak Spring Flora (1997) and An Oak Spring Herbaria (2009), highlight some of the most influential and unique pieces in Bunny Mellon's collection pertaining to trees, fruit, flowers, and herbs.

All four volumes are now freely available as a searchable e-books here. It is yet another step in our ongoing efforts to make the Library collection available to those who can learn from and be inspired by our wealth of materials.

Explore More

Every shelf, every book, every page. The Oak Spring Garden Library abounds with stories that connect us through time and space to the fascinating world of plants and gardens. Read our latest blog posts inspired by the captivating material in the library’s collections.

Featured
From Library to Landscape
From Library to Landscape

The landscape of Oak Spring is humming with activity as we step into the final days of summer. Sounds of cicadas buzzing from the trees, grasshoppers darting in the fields, and butterflies flocking to flowers. Some of these insects leap onto the pages of a rare three volume manuscript completed by Moses Harris for the entomologist Dru Drury. Read on to learn more about the partnership between the two and hear from our Ecologist and Collections Specialist, Dr. Rea Manderino.

Wildflowers of Georgetown
Wildflowers of Georgetown

The Oak Spring Garden Library holds books from vast parts of the globe. You can take a tour of the flora of Australia, China, Brazil and more. There are other volumes that take the focus to a more local scale, like Wildflowers of Georgetown. This work highlights the spring plants found in Georgetown, DC; some of which are in flower right now across the region. Read below to learn more about this latest digital introduction and to hear from our Head of Biodiversity Conservation on why it’s a gem of a resource.

Maria Sibylla Merian and the Origins of Ecology
Maria Sibylla Merian and the Origins of Ecology

One woman who was instrumental in the shift towards ecologically accurate illustrations was Maria Sibylla Merian. Born on this day in 1647, Merian created striking works and is regarded as the first ecologist of Europe. Learn more about her work and to watch a video by Merian scholar Dr. Kay Etheridge.

Sisters in Botanical Illustration
Sisters in Botanical Illustration

If the Brontë sisters are celebrity siblings of the writing world, then sisters Elizabeth and Margaret Wharton are the unsung stars from the “golden age” of botanical illustration. In honor of Women’s History month we are highlighting two sisters, whose works underscore the importance of women’s place in the formation of botany and scientific illustration. Read on to learn about their contributions and to view these women’s works in full as part of our ongoing digitization project.

Carolus Clusius
Carolus Clusius

Over the past several years, select rare books, manuscripts, paintings, and other objects have been professionally digitized. In honor of this exciting new project, we’re kicking things off with a work by Flemish botanist, Carolus Clusius, whose birthday also just so happens to be today. Clusius is regarded as one of the most influential botanists of pre-Linnaean times, having contributed nearly 600 descriptions of plants and overseeing the formation of one of Europe's first botanical gardens, Hortus Botanicus Leiden.

Around the World in Flowers
Around the World in Flowers

The western hemisphere is currently in the final stages of fall– trees in the landscape have reached dormancy and much of the garden has been tucked away for winter. On the other side of the globe, countries in the southern hemisphere are awaiting the arrival of summer and with it a beautiful array of flowers. Read on to take a botanical tour through the plants of the Southern Hemisphere without ever having to set foot in an airport.

Other Media

This video, narrated by Jeremy Irons, vibrantly brings to life the Humphry Repton Red Book on Armley House from the Oak Spring Garden Library collection. It was done with OSGF’s permission and support for the exhibit, “Repton Revealed: The Art of Landscape Gardening,” in celebration of Repton’s bicentenary.

Paul Stamper is a scholar from English Heritage specializing in the history of landscapes and gardens. Here he describes two items from the Oak Spring Garden Library and explains what makes them particularly unique and interesting.

Slideshow: Click below to explore our Library

Inside the Library

The Oak Spring Garden Library is located in rural Upperville, Virginia, adjacent to the former Mellon residence. The Library was a gift from Paul Mellon to his wife, Bunny Mellon, in order to contain her growing collection of rare books, manuscripts, illustrations and paintings. 

Step into the Oak Spring Garden Library to hear our staff, residents, and scholars tell the stories behind some of their favorite items in the collection. To...

Video Tour: Treasures of the Oak Spring Garden library

Step inside the Oak Spring Garden Library to hear our staff, residents, and scholars tell the stories behind some of their favorite items in the collection.

Pioneers of Natural History Illustration: Featured Blogs

Read five fascinating articles written by participants in our 2022 Pioneers of Natural History short course.

Banner Image by Roger Foley