The Natural History of Selborne (Penguin English Library)

by Gilbert White (Author), Gilbert White (Author), Richard Mabey (Editor)

• New

  Paperback
  1977

  $10.73

  More than any other writer, Gilbert White (1720-93) has shaped the relationship between man and nature. A hundred years before Darwin, White realised the crucial role of worms in the formation of soil and understood the significance of territory and song in birds. His precise, scrupulously honest and unaffectedly witty observations led him to interpret animals' behaviour in a unique manner. This collection of his letters to the explorer and naturalist Daines Barrington and the eminent zoologist Thomas Pennant - White's intellectual lifelines from his country-village home - are a beautifully written, detailed evocation of the lives of the flora and fauna of eighteenth-century England.

• Used

  Paperback
  1993

  $3.23

  The Natural History of Selborne (1789) is the distillation of a lifetime of observation, and ranges far beyond White's immediate neighbourhood. His main aims were to induce readers to pay more attention to the wonders around them, and to advance their knowledge of the variety of life: his success has made this book a classic. White's commitment to life and manners and the grace and immediacy of his style raise his work above the reports of other natural historians. While aware of the doubts and upheavals occurring in contemporary Europe and America, he upheld a belief in the strength of nature to withstand disaster, and celebrated the endeavour of human and animal communities to survive. This new edition includes fresh information about White's methods of working and the tradition in which he wrote, and provides comprehensive explanatory and biographical information.