Robert Cameron developed his interest in snails as a student, lured away from birds by his supervisor, Arthur Cain. Starting in Portsmouth, his career has been mainly in Adult Education at Birmingham and Sheffield Universities. His PhD involved the well-known shell polymorphism in Cepaea snails, and that has remained a core interest, leading to participation in the Evolution MegaLab set up to commemorate Darwin Year in 2009. The biogeography and ecology of land snails have remained a focus throughout his career and beyond, taking him to Australia, Canada, Greece, Madeira, the Azores and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. He was the co-author (with Michael Kerney) of the Field Guide to the Land Snails of Britain and North-West Europe (1979) and has produced keys to the British species. He is the author or co-author of more than 140 papers on snails.
'I can unhesitatingly recommend this book. It is extremely thorough in its coverage and is an engrossing read, packed with an amazing range of fascinating information. It is generously illustrated with numerous pictures, illustrations and charts [...] This groundbreaking volume should remain a standard work on the natural history of snails and slugs for many years.' British Wildlife Praise for the New Naturalist series: 'Taken either individually or as a whole, they are one of the proudest achievements of modern publishing' The Sunday Times 'The series is an amazing achievement' The Times Literary Supplement 'The books are glorious to own' Independent