The front cover of a book with a wooden binding. The wood is varnished to a dark reddish brown, and carved with oak leaves and acorns. The title 'Herne's Oak' is just visible embossed on the spine. In the centre, a cutaway section in the wooden cover reveals a sepia photograph of an old, dying oak tree with a fence around its base, with other, living trees in the background.

A Treatise on the Identity of Herne’s Oak Shewing the Maiden Tree to have been the Real One

William Perry

1867

Book

20.0 x 15.3 x 2.4 cm 

RCIN 1047000

Image credit: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021

William Perry’s contribution to the ‘Herne’s Oak’ debate is not disinterested: he had already made (and sold) ‘relics’ from his preferred tree.

This special copy of his Treatise on the Identity of Herne's Oak, which he presented to Edward VII, is itself a kind of relic, bound in the wood in question, carved in a faux-Elizabethan style and soaked in varnish make it appear suitably antique.

At the same time, the photograph inset into the cover makes a more ‘scientific’ claim to authenticity, in line with Treatise’s contents: maps, textual analysis and comparative tables.

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