Project Gutenberg
2013-07-28
Public domain in the USA.
541
Lee, Henry
1826
1888
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary: A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant.
To Which Is Added a Sketch of the History of Cotton and the Cotton Trade
Wikipedia page about this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_Lamb_of_Tartary
The fable and its interpretation -- The history of cotton and its introduction into Europe.
Produced by Chris Curnow, Harry Lamé and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
"The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary: A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant" by Henry Lee is a historical account written in the late 19th century. The book explores the mythical legend of the "Vegetable Lamb," which was believed to be a hybrid of plant and animal that bore living lambs as fruit. Lee aims to trace the origins of this fable and connect it to the actual cotton plant, elucidating the misconceptions that prevailed in the Middle Ages. At the start of the book, the author introduces the fable of the "Vegetable Lamb," providing detailed descriptions of this mythological entity as well as its various iterations, including its depiction as both fruit-bearing tree-lambs and living lambs tethered to the ground. Lee discusses how these stories evolved and propagated, starting from ancient historical accounts through the interpretations of medieval writers, leading to what he argues is a distortion of a true botanical phenomenon—namely, the cotton plant. Through this initial chapter, he establishes a foundation for analyzing the interplay between truth, folklore, and the evolution of the myths surrounding the origins of cotton in Western Europe. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
file:///public/vhost/g/gutenberg/html/files/43343/43343-h/images/cover.jpg
Reading ease score: 57.7 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read.
en
Plants -- Folklore
Cotton -- History
QK
Text
Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore
Category: History - Medieval/Middle Ages
Category: History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)
Category: History - Modern (1750+)
Category: Archaeology & Anthropology
276630
2025-08-17T12:16:13.503269
text/html
255469
2024-10-23T17:25:01
text/html
1267917
2025-08-17T12:16:20.032334
application/epub+zip
1271164
2025-08-17T12:16:15.141280
application/epub+zip
160856
2025-08-17T12:16:14.113302
application/epub+zip
1463212
2025-08-17T12:16:23.280290
application/x-mobipocket-ebook
1349973
2025-08-17T12:16:18.887223
application/x-mobipocket-ebook
231679
2022-09-19T18:22:40.255695
application/x-mobipocket-ebook
213478
2025-08-17T12:16:12.690280
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
193376
2024-10-23T17:25:01
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
17762
2025-08-17T12:16:23.433203
application/rdf+xml
16541
2025-08-17T12:16:14.224245
image/jpeg
2450
2025-08-17T12:16:14.168287
image/jpeg
1149117
2025-08-17T12:16:13.561437
application/octet-stream
application/zip
Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at
https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog
en.wikipedia