The New Naturalists (Collins New Naturalist Library, Book 82)
Peter Marren
Language: English
Pages: 364
ISBN: B004FPYX4K
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A history of the most successful, significant and long-running natural history series in the world.
A history of the most successful, significant and long-running natural history series in the world.
In 1995 Collins published the 82nd volume in the New Naturalist series to coincide with its 50th anniversary. Ten years on, Peter Marren has revised this fascinating account of the series. He covers the illustrious careers of its authors, how each title was conceived and received, and includes plates of the sketches and roughs of the jackets. It also gives behind-the-scenes details of the also-rans and the books-that-never-were.
This will appeal to the collector's market - it has a lengthy appendix dedicated to collecting the series with advice on how to spot a good edition, and a star rating according to scarcity - and will mark the 60th anniversary of the publication of the first new naturalist title.
Peter Marren is a trained ecologist who worked as a woodland scientist, conservation officer and author-editor with the Natural Conservancy Council between 1977 and 1992. He has written numerous book and articles and contributes regularly to British Wildlife.
imagine a more desolate and chilling scene than that of the ruined town of Calais. The ships, crowded at anchor near the quay, hid the sea and bay from view – like the backcloth of some stage scenery. Piles of shattered concrete and bricks stretched away to the horizon. The gale was blowing slates about like so much waste paper, and strands of barbed wire were sent crawling across the cracked tarmac like nervous snakes. I suddenly realised that the surrealists had had second sight – for here was
have been amazed to learn that a certain natural history series published by Collins, was still going strong, having passed the hundred-book mark some time ago. So let us raise our field glasses to the authors and editors of the New Naturalist series, and to the series itself. From Butterflies to Ladybirds the library has kept bright the flame of British natural history for half a hundred years. Long may that flame endure. Bronze bust of James Fisher by Elizabeth Frink. (Photo: Clemency
with a friendly eye. To the New Naturalist authors and photographers with whom I have corresponded, or interviewed, I owe a special debt of thanks, since the book could not have been written in this way without their help. They are: Mr Robert Atkinson, Mr Sam Beaufoy, Professor R.J. Berry, Dr J. Morton Boyd CBE, Dr Colin G. Butler FRS, Mr Niall Campbell, Mr William Condry, Professor Philip Corbet, Dr Brian Davis, Mr Richard Fitter, Professor John Free, Mr Fred Goldring, Professor W.G. Hale, Mr
book) has surely established Robert Gillmor as a worthy successor of the Ellises. The New Naturalist hardbacks still gleam in the bookshops (when they are allowed to do so) as well as ever they did; or perhaps even more so, now that the art of dust jacket design has elsewhere been all but eclipsed by glossy, unimaginative pictures created by the camera. 5 E.B. Ford and Butterflies5 As an introduction to Professor E.B. Ford FRS, Fellow of All Souls, author of what many consider to have
one on freshwater biology, and I set about a rough synopsis and drafted one or two chapters.’ Fate then intervened. In 1946, Worthington was ‘yanked back to Africa’ to rejoin the East Africa High Commission, and it was at this point that his deputy, T.T. Macan, was brought in as a collaborator. The bulk of the book was written by Macan during Worthington’s sojourn in Africa, though he drew extensively on the work of FBA colleagues (it was very much an FBA book). Life in Lakes and Rivers reflects