Left to her own devices with no income, a house to run, and a child to raise, Blackwell decided to put to use her training as an artist. She learned that a
herbal was needed to depict and describe exotic plants from the
New World. She decided that she could illustrate it and that Alexander, given his medical background, could write the descriptions of the plants. As she completed the drawings, Blackwell would take them to her husband's cell, where he supplied the correct names in Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and German. Blackwell was an amateur in botany. To compensate for this, she was aided by
Isaac Rand, then curator of the
Chelsea Physic Garden, where many of these new plants were under cultivation. At Rand's suggestion, she relocated near the Garden so she could draw the plants from life. In addition to the drawings, Blackwell engraved the copper printing plates for the 500 images and text and hand-colored the printed illustrations. It was common for artists to hire a professional engraver to create plates, but Blackwell took it upon herself in order to save this expense. Pages of written descriptions for each plant were added that included a physical description, growth habit, where and when the plant could be located, how each part could be used, and the other names for the plant provided by Blackwell’s husband. The task of creating
A Curious Herbal was immense and took a number of years to complete.
A Curious Herbal, containing five hundred cuts of the most useful plants which are now used in the Practise of Physick, to which is added a short description of ye plants and their common uses in Physick was issued in weekly parts, each containing four plates and accompanying text over 125 weeks between 1737 and 1739. The first volume contained 250 plates and was published in 1737. The imprint read "London printed for Samuel Harding in St Martin’s Lane," and the new publication was announced in the
Gentleman’s Magazine for July 1737. had been published and that "the whole 500 will be finished in eight months"; a dedication to Dr. John Johnstoun is dated 17 January 1739. The advertisement in
The Country Journal closes with a warning against a spurious and base copy of the work sold by Samuel Harding. One such copy had been made by a group of printers and engravers who were prosecuted by Alexander for duplicating some of her plates. and her grave is at
All Saints Church in
Chelsea, London. Her name is one of four on a plaque in
Chelsea Old Church commemorating Chelsea women distinguished by their learning and piety. She remained loyal to Alexander throughout, even sharing royalties with him from the sale of additional book rights. A genus of plants named after her, Blackwellia, is of the class Dodecandria Pentagynia. There are six subspecies of Blackwellia: Blackwellia Panticulata, Blackwellia Glauca, Blackwellia Nipaulensis, Blackwellia Axillaris, Blackwellia Siralis, and Blackwellia Padifolia. These species are native to Réunion, Mauritius, Nepal, Madagascar, Peru, and China, respectively. In the 1920s, playwright
Constance Smedley wrote a play titled
The Curious Herbal about Blackwell's work, though it has not been performed since the 1940s. == Influences ==