The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White

The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White

Two centuries have passed since Gilbert While was laid to rest in his unassuming grave in Selborne churchyard. To commemorate the bicentenary, and to celebrate the man, this illustrated edition of his classic work is made available once more. White's accurate study of the flora and fauna of his native parish, first published in 1789, makes delightful reading today. His regular correspondence, beginning in 1767, with two distinguished naturalists, Thomas Pennant and the Honourable Daines Barrington, forms the basis of "The Natural History of Selborne". The fascination of the book lies in the magic of its prose and the vividness of its description, which have earned it the distinction of being the only work on natural history to have received equal acclaim as a masterpiece of English literature. Almost three hundred editions and reissues of Selborne testify to its lasting and universal appeal.

White, Gilbert: - Gilbert White FRS (18 July 1720 - 26 June 1793) was a parson-naturalist, a pioneering English naturalist, ecologist and ornithologist. He is best known for his Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne. White is best known for his The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). This is presented as a compilation of his letters to Thomas Pennant, the leading British zoologist of the day, and the Hon. Daines Barrington, an English barrister and another Fellow of the Royal Society, though a number of the 'letters' such as the first nine were never posted, and were written especially for the book.[16] The book has been continuously in print since its first publication.[17] It was long held, probably apocryphally, to be the fourth-most published book in the English language after the Bible, the works of Shakespeare, and John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress White's biographer, Richard Mabey, praises White's expressiveness: What is striking is the way Gilbert [White] often arranges his sentence structure to echo the physical style of a bird's flight. So 'The white-throat uses odd jerks and gesticulations over the tops of hedges and bushes'; and 'Woodpeckers fly volatu undosu [in an undulating flight], opening and closing their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising and falling in curves. White has often been seen as an amateur 'country writer', especially by the scientific community. However, he has been called 'the indispensable precursor to those great Victorians who would transform our ideas about life on Earth, especially in the undergrowth - Lyell, Spencer, Huxley and Darwin.'[20] And he is under-rated as a pioneer of modern scientific research methods, particularly fieldwork.[21] As Mabey argues, the blending of scientific and emotional responses to Nature was White's greatest legacy: 'it helped foster the growth of ecology and the realisation that humans were also part of the natural scheme of things.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780500974094
ISBN 10	0500974098
Title	The Natural History of Selborne
Author	Gilbert White
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Thames & Hudson Ltd
Year published	1993-04-05
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.