The Natural History of Selborne

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Gilbert White Anne Secord (Associate Editor, Darwin Correspondence Project, University of Cambridge)

The Natural History of Selborne

Gilbert White, Anne Secord (Associate Editor, Darwin Correspondence Project, University of Cambridge)

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English

Oxford University Press
12 November 2013

Mathematics & Sciences; Environmentalist thought & ideology; Wildlife: general interest; The countryside, country life

Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne (1789) reveals a world of wonders in nature.

Over a period of twenty years White describes in minute detail the behaviour of animals through the changing seasons in the rural Hampshire parish of Selborne.

He notes everything from the habits of an eccentric tortoise to the mysteries of bird migration and animal reproduction, with the purpose of inspiring others to observe their own surroundings with the same pleasure and attention.

Written as a series of letters, White's book has all the immediacy and freshness of an exchange with friends, yet it is none the less crafted with compelling literary skill. His gossipy correspondence has delighted readers from Charles Darwin to Virginia Woolf, and it has been read as a nostalgic evocation of a pastoral vision, a model for local studies of plants and animals, and a precursor to modern ecology.

This new edition includes contemporary illustrations and an introduction setting the work in its eighteenth-century context, as well as an appendix tracking the remarkable range of responses to the work over the last two hundred years.

By: Gilbert White
Edited by: Anne Secord (Associate Editor Darwin Correspondence Project University of Cambridge)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 196mm, Width: 135mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 415g
ISBN: 9780199591961
ISBN 10: 0199591962
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 12 November 2013
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

<br>Gilbert White was born in 1720 in Selborne in Hampshire and went to Oriel College, Oxford, where he became a Fellow in 1743. He took ordination and held a number of curacies in the vicinity of Selborne before finally becoming permanent curate of his birthplace in 1784, a position he held until his death in 1793. In 1751 he started keeping his 'Garden Kalendar', and later the 'Naturalist's Journal' he kept for 25 years. The Natural History of Selborne is based on his correspondence with two distinguished naturalists, Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington. <br>Anne Secord is an Affiliated Research Scholar in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge. The focus of her research and writing is on popular natural history in nineteenth-century Britain, and on horticulture, medicine, and consumption in the eighteenth century. She is completing a book that explores social class, observation, and skill in nineteenth-century natural history for the University of Chicago Press.<br>

Reviews for The Natural History of Selborne

I can wholeheartedly recommend this edition ... Beautifully produced ... Secords introduction - surely one of the chief reasons to purchase this new edition of a book never out of print - provides a nuanced and stimulating account of the origins, character, and legacies of Selborne. * Diarmid A. Finnegan, Journal of Historical Geography * Any book that delighted both Virginia Woolf and Charles Darwin is a must-read, in my opinion. But this little gem of a book is also beautifully produced and has some added useful context. * GrrlScientist, Guardian * A natural history must-read in a new edition. * New Scientist * This Oxford edition offers new insights into a work that has been hugely popular. * Land and Business * This comfortable pocket edition of the classic work ... is a delight to handle and read. This will certainly be one of my future travelling companions. * Biological Journal of the Linnean Society *