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.