James Bolton was a naturalist in the 1700s that published books about plants, fungi, and birds. He was a talented illustrator. The week’s eBook is his book about birds. He was a keen observer of the birds themselves and their nests. The book is available on Internet Archive.
Harmonia ruralis, or, An essay towards a natural history of British song birds V1 and V2
The week’s featured eBooks are six historical books for children - written in the early 1900s (1903-1924) by Francis Margaret (Madge) Fox. It’s interesting to think about how childhood has changed in the past 100+ years…and the books available to them. My grandparents were children during this time and their families were settlers/farmers of the prairie; they likely did not have any children’s books in their households and lived in very rural communities. There were not as many libraries in the US in the early 1900s as there are now and books were beyond the means of many families. Now we have whole sections of libraries dedicated to books for children! When I volunteer at the used book sales at the library, the ones for children are our most reliable sellers.
Madge Fox’s papers are held by the University of Michigan Library. Their site has a short biography of her life.
Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in November - available for browsing on Internet Archive, New York Public Library Digital Collections, or Botanicus. They cover a range of botanical topics: medicinal plants, botanical link in literature (Milton), particular taxonomic groups, and fruit as well as plants of places (Italy, Russia, and Korea (7 volumes!)). Three volumes (1 by Cornut and 2 by Presl) were about North American plants from preserved plants collected by others – the authors never visit the New World. Overall - the 20 books were published over almost 300 years (1635-1933).
My list of eBotanical Prints books past the 3,000 volumes milestone in November – now totaling 3,003 botanical eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here. Click on any sample image below to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume.
Enjoy the November 2024 eBotanical Prints!
Picturesque botanical plates * Thornton, Robert John * sample image * 1807
American medical botany * Bigelow, Jacob (artist) * sample image * 1820
Sorimachi 409 * Spencer collection * sample image * 1746
The Flowers of Milton * Giraud, Jane Elizabeth (Lithographer) * sample image * 1846
Pomona Italiana * Gallesio, Giorgia (illustrator); Capurro, Niccolo (pubisher) * sample image * 1839
Iac. Cornvti ... Canadensivm planatarvm, aliarumque nondum editarum historia. * Cornut, Jacques Philippe * sample image * 1635
Eidodendron: views of the general character and appearance of trees foreign and indigenous connected with picturesque scenery * Burgess, Henry William (artist); Hullmandel, Charles Joseph (printer) * sample image * 1827
Flora Rossica * Pallas, Peter Simon * sample image * 1788
Reliquiae Haenkeanae V1 * Presl, Karel Borivoj; Haenke, Thaddaus * sample image * 1833
Reliquiae Haenkeanae V2 * Presl, Karel Borivoj; Haenke, Thaddaus * sample image * 1835
Hymenophyllaceae :eine botanische Abhandlung * Presl, Karel Borivoj * sample image * 1843
Tentamen Pteridographiae * Presl, Karel Borivoj * sample image * 1836
The Hardy Catalpa * Record, Samuel James * sample image * 1906
Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 11 Caprifoliaceae * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1921
Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 16 Araliaceae and Cornaceae * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1927
Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 17 Elæagnaceæ, Alangiaceæ, Daphnaceæ, Flacourtiaceæ et Ternstrœmiaceæ * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1928
Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 18 Piperaceæ, Chloranthaceæ et Salicaceæ * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1930
Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 19 Ulmaceæ et Moraceæ * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1932
Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 20 Bambusaceæ, Myricaceæ, Juglandaceæ, Magnoliaceæ * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1933
Flora Sylvatica Koreana pt. 21 Aristolochiaceæ, Lardizabalaceæ, Berberidaceæ, Pittosporaceæ, Malvaceæ, Empetraceæ, Urticaceæ * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1933
This week’s books are 9 well-illustrated travel books by Nevin Otto Winter published between 1910 and 1918. I was most interested in the illustrations – mostly photographs – although the narrative would serve to understand the perspective of an American traveler of that time period encountering foreign customs. I picked two sample images from each book to include with this post but follow the link to Internet Archive to experience the whole book. Enjoy!
I am thinking of Thanksgiving ahead of time – planning a quite holiday with family with activities planned before and after:
The holiday light display is open for Friends of the Garden the Monday before Thanksgiving…so we will enjoy our first walk through of the season unless the weather is wet. I missed seeing them at all in 2023 because I was in Dallas for the later part of the year.
I am not a black Friday shopper…but enjoy being outdoors (maybe working off some of the calories from the day before). Our November has been relatively mild…good hiking weather.
There is also plenty in my life to be thankful for right now:
My dad is comfortable at his assisted living home; my sisters and I are able to visit him frequently.
I have finished my Missouri Master Naturalist training, and the volunteering opportunities seem to be coming along as I expected. There is much to learn and do even during the winter.
The Identifying Woody Plants class at Missouri State is about over…and I thoroughly enjoyed the field trips – learned a lot about great outdoor places close to where I live.
Our home is snug – ready for winter…the sprinkler system winterized and the heating system checked.
Both cars are performing well. Both have been used for road trips recently. My husband and I both appreciate the driver’s aids on modern cars when we make longer drives.
The fall has been prolonged by the milder temperatures. The color might have been muted from less rain in the summer, but the length of the display made up for that.
Internet Archive is back online. I missed it a lot while it was down and realize how much I savor browsing through its digitized old books; many of them are not available otherwise.
Life is good….
Robert Edwin Peary’s Arctic explorations in the later 19th and early 20th centuries are documented in 6 books he published between 1898 and 1917. They are available on Internet Archive and worth browsing. They are all well-illustrated…attempting to show every aspect of Arctic exploration and Inuit life too. I’ve selected 2 sample images from each book…hopefully enough to encourage browsing the books for yourself!
As we head into winter – I am thinking about butterflies…how I didn’t see as many (or any species) this past summer. Maybe it is the drought in our area, and they will be more numerous next year. I hope so.
Edwards’ volume is the first of three he produced in the 1870s. The illustrations were done by Mary Peart and hand colored by Lydia Brown and often include more than simply the adult butterfly in the later volumes. They are well worth browsing.
William Forsell Kirby was an English Entomologist that authored a 5-volume Handbook to the Order Lepidoptera in 1896 and 1897. I am featuring the 1st volume as this week’s ‘book of the week’ because I was so pleased to find it. I had somehow browsed the other 4 volumes back in 2016! Enjoy the 4 sample images….and follow the link to see many more.
Twenty more books were added to my botanical print book collection in October - available for browsing on Internet Archive. These 20 books covered a range of botanical topics: berries, fruits, nuts, plants for sale as well as plants of particular places (Mexico, Korea, New Zealand). They were published between 1830 and 1942.
The whole list of 2,983 botanical eBooks I’ve browsed over the years can be accessed here. Click on any sample image below to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume.
Enjoy the October 2024 eBotanical Prints!
Rio Mayo plants: a study of the flora and vegetation of the valley of the Rio Mayo, Senora * Genty, Howard Scott * sample image * 1942
Hymenophyllaceae - eine botanische Abhandlung * Presl, Karel Borziwogo * sample image * 1843
Symbolae botanicae, sive, Descriptiones et icones plantarum novarum aut minus cognitarum * Presl, Karel Borziwogo * sample image * 1830
Icones Plantarum V31 * Hooker, Joseph Dalton; Hooker, William Jackson * sample image * 1922
Icones Plantarum V32 * Hooker, Joseph Dalton; Hooker, William Jackson * sample image * 1933
Icones Plantarum V33 * Hooker, Joseph Dalton; Hooker, William Jackson * sample image * 1935
New Zealand Berries * Harris, Emily Cumming * sample image * 1894
New Zealand Flowers * Harris, Emily Cumming * sample image * 1890
New Zealand Ferns * Harris, Emily Cumming * sample image * 1890
Illustrated catalogue of fruit and ornamental trees, shrubs, vines, roses, etc. * May Brothers * sample image * 1887
Rose buds and holly berries * Bennett, Harriet M. et al (illustrators) * sample image * 1888
Bush-fruits; a horticultural monograph of raspberries, blackberries, dewberries, currants, gooseberries, and other shrub-like fruits * Card, Fred * sample image * 1898
Betten, Robert: Beerenobst 1908 * Betten, Robert * sample image * 1908
The Book of the Grape * Ward, William Henry * sample image * 1901
The Small Fruit Culturist * Fuller, Andrew Samuel * sample image * 1887
The Nut Culturist * Fuller, Andrew Samuel * sample image * 1896
Practical Forestry * Fuller, Andrew Samuel * sample image * 1884
Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 1 Aceraceae; Pt 2Betulaceae * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1915
Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 7 Rosaceae; Pt 8 Ericaceae * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1918
Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 8 Rhamnaceae; Pt 9 Oleaceae * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1920
The 6 early volumes of Arthur Cleveland Bent’s 23 volume work, Life Histories of North American Birds are available on Internet Archive. The work was published from 1919-1968…the later volumes completed posthumously after his death in 1954. The volumes available are from before 1930.
Bent evidently traveled extensively and interacted with 100s of people to compile the histories…quite an undertaking – more so since it was done before the computers! He started the work when he was 44 years old and spent the 44 remaining years of his life working on it. The work includes numerous photographs; I provide two from each book below but there are many more – well worth browsing these volumes - and the text is interesting as well.
A more detailed biography of Bent’s life can be found here.
A History of Oriental Carpets was produced by Fredrik Robert Martin based on his collection experiences in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Its three volumes are well-illustrated and easy to browse although I found myself wanting to zoom in on a lot of the images!
A history of oriental carpets before 1800 pt 1 (1906)
The week’s eBooks are full of illustrations of children – mostly outdoors. They are probably somewhat idealized but are a window into the view people had of what children should be doing in the late 1800s. Certainly children were outdoors more often then than most children are today.
Robert Ellice Mack was the editor of the books – selecting poem written by others and illustrations from several artists. There are other books from him that have been digitized; a good list is on University of Pennsylvania’s Online Books Page for him.
Twenty more books were added to my botanical print book collection in September - available for browsing on Internet Archive. These 20 books covered a range of botanical topics: woody plants, flower seasons, plant fossils, mushrooms, trees, ferns, a plant lore conference, and grasses as well as plants of particular places (English Lake Country, Santa Catalina Island, Yucatan, West Indies, and the District of Columbia).
The whole list of 2,963 botanical eBooks I’ve browsed over the years can be accessed here. Click on any sample images below to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume.
Enjoy the September 2024 eBotanical Prints!
Our woodlands, heaths, and hedges : a popular description of trees, shrubs, wild fruits * Coleman, William Stephen * sample image * 1866
The romance of nature : or The flower-seasons illustrated * Meredith, Charles(Mrs); Twamley, Louisa Anne * sample image * 1839
Flora fossilis insubrica : studi sulla Vegetazione di Lombardia durante i tempi geologici * Sordelli, Ferdinando * sample image * 1896
Florule Toulousaine * Sudre, Henri * sample image * 1907
An history of fungusses, growing about Halifax V 1-2 * Bolton, James * sample image * 1788
An history of fungusses, growing about Halifax V 3-4 * Bolton, James * sample image * 1791
The tree book : a popular guide to a knowledge of the trees of North America and to their uses and cultivation * Rogers, Julia Ellen * sample image * 1907
The Ferns of the English Lake Country : with a list of varieties * Linton, William James * sample image * 1893
Flora of Santa Catalina Island (California) * Millspaugh, Charles Frederick; Nuttall, Lawrence William * sample image * 1923
Plantæ Yucatanæ. (Regionis Antillanæ) Plants of the insular, coastal and plain regions of the peninsula of Yucatan, Mexico V1 * Millspaugh, Charles Frederick; Chase, Agnes * sample image * 1903
Plantæ Yucatanæ. (Regionis Antillanæ) Plants of the insular, coastal and plain regions of the peninsula of Yucatan, Mexico V2 * Millspaugh, Charles Frederick; Chase, Agnes * sample image * 1904
Old and new plant lore; a symposium * Chase, Agnes; Hitchcock, Albert Spear * sample image * 1931
The genera of grasses of the United States : with special reference to the economic species * Hitchcock, Albert Spear * sample image * 1920
A text-book of grasses with especial reference to the economic species of the United States * Hitchcock, Albert Spear * sample image * 1914
A Manual of Farm Grasses * Hitchcock, Albert Spear * sample image * 1921
Manual of the grasses of the West Indies * Hitchcock, Albert Spear * sample image * 1936
The Grasses of Hawaii * Hitchcock, Albert Spear * sample image * 1922
Flora of the District of Columbia and vicinity. By A.S. Hitchcock and Paul C. Standley, with the assistance of the botanists of Washington * Hitchcock, Albert Spear; Standley, Paul Carpenter * sample image * 1919
Flora Americae Septentrionalis, or, A systematic arrangement and description of the plants of North America V1 * Pursh, Federick * sample image * 1814
Flora Americae Septentrionalis, or, A systematic arrangement and description of the plants of North America V2 * Pursh, Federick * sample image * 1814
I browsed 4 Gene Stratton-Porter books recently; I had read several of her books before eBooks existed but had only recently looked at the list of her books on Internet Archive…and realized I’d missed the 4 that are this week’s eBook picks. They are all well illustrated…worth browsing for the illustrations as well as reading. They still have relevance with natural places even more challenged than when she wrote. Hopefully the appreciation of nature in our lives is still strong enough to prompt increased conservation although even in her lifetime the Limberlost Swamp was gone, drained so that the land could be used for agriculture.
Homing with the birds: the history of a lifetime of personal experience with the birds in1920
Moths of the Limberlost: With Water Color and Photographic Illustrations from Life in 1912
Music of the wild, with reproductions of the performers, their instruments and festival halls in 1910
What I have done with birds in 1907
Enjoy 11 well-illustrated eBooks this week by Frank Finn from the early decades of the 1900s. Most of them are about birds and there is a skew toward Asia since the author spent almost a decade in India. The Wikipedia article was shorter than I expected so I searched further and found an obituary in Nature from 1932 which was more informative. These books are freely available on Internet Archive and worth browsing!
The world's birds a simple and popular classification of the birds of the world
Internet Archive has the 4 volumes of John Charles Phillips’ A Natural History of the Ducks; the books were published in the early 1920s – well illustrated in color and black and white from drawings by Frank W. Benson, Allan Brooks, and Louis Agassiz Fuertes. The author was educated as a doctor but never practiced professionally…instead focusing on hunting, zoology, ornithology and the environment. He published over 200 articles on his activities including animal breeding, sport hunting, ornithology, wildlife conservation, faunal surveys and systematic reviews, and Mendelian genetics. I enjoyed browsing these eBooks for their illustrations…wondering about the modern classification of ducks and how many of them have become endangered in the years since Phillips observed them.
A natural history of the ducks V1
A natural history of the ducks V2
Twenty more books were added to my botanical print book collection in August - available for browsing on Internet Archive and the Natural History Museum Library (London). I discovered that most of the volumes scanned by the NHML are available on Internet Archive and listed in the collection page for the library; I am more comfortable browsing books that way; however, these books would be harder to find in the Internet Archive outside of the collection list because they do not have ‘topics’ metadata. I was surprised at how many books I’d missed entirely. All 20 additions this month were scanned by NHML.
The whole list of 2,943 botanical eBooks I’ve browsed over the years can be accessed here. Click on any sample images below to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume.
Enjoy the August 2024 eBotanical Prints!
Filices Britannicae * Bolton, James * sample image * 1785
llustrations of Orchidaceous plants * Bauer, Frnaz Andres * sample image * 1838
Tentamen Floræ Napalensis illustratae : consisting of botanical descriptions and ... figures of select Nipal Plants * Wallich, Nathanial * sample image * 1824
Fossil Plants : sixty photographs illustrating the Flora of the Coal Measures * Arber, Edward Alexander Newell * sample image * 1909
Plant life in Alpine Switzerland; being an account in simple language of the natural history of Alpine plants * Arber, Edward Alexander Newell * sample image * 1910
Fifty Flowers Drawn from Nature at Halifax * Bolton, James * sample image * 1785
The illustrated field guide to ferns and allied plants of the British Isles * Jermy, Clive; Camus, Josphine * sample image * 1991
Ferny Combes : a ramble after Ferns in the Glens and Valleys of Devonshire * Chanter, Charlotte * sample image * 1857
Alpine Plants at Home Series 1 * Hastings, Somerville * sample image * 1908
Alpine Plants at Home Series 2 * Hastings, Somerville * sample image * 1910
The fern paradise : a plea for the culture of ferns * Heath, Francis George * sample image * 1878
Garden Companion and Florists' Guide * Henfrey, Arthur * sample image * 1852
The fern garden : how to make, keep and enjoy it, or, fern culture made easy * Hibberd, Jaes Shirley * sample image * 1881
The ferns of Derbyshire : illustrated from nature * Howe, W.E. * sample image * 1863
Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Botany (1995) * Natural History Museum (London) * sample image * 1995
Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Botany (1999) * Natural History Museum (London) * sample image * 1999
Weeds of Bhutan * Parker, Chris * sample image * 1992
Rambles in search of ferns * Plues, Margaret * sample image * 1861
Wild Flowers at Home Series 1 * Todd, Cameron * sample image * 1906
Wild Flowers at Home Series 2 * Todd, Cameron * sample image * 1906
Allan Octavian Hume was in British India as a civil servant from 1849 to 1882; during that time, he also pursued his interests in ornithology. The 3 volumes on game birds were published in 1879. Charles Henry Tilson Marshall organized the plates for the books that were produced by multiple artists. The volumes are available from Internet Archive.
The game birds of India, Burmah, and Ceylon V1
In 1883 he began the process to donate his collection to the Natural History Museum in London. The material that went to the museum in 1885 consisted of 82,000 specimens of which 75,577 (258 being type specimens) were finally placed in the museum where it continues to be the single largest collection of Indian bird skins.
Liberty Hyde Bailey edited 4 volumes of the Cyclopedia of American Agriculture between 1900 and 1910. It was a time when horticulture and agriculture were becoming more organized at universities and Bailey was a proponent of America as a ‘great agricultural civilization.’
The books are easily browsed on Internet Archive and the photographs clearly reflect the ‘state of the art for agriculture’ in the early 1900s when they were written. I selected two sample images from each of the 4 volumes. (click on the image to see a larger version)
The week’s featured eBooks are from Internet Archive, originally published in the 1720s and 1730s. Eleazar Albin, according to his Wikipedia entry, was an English naturalist and watercolorist illustrator. He gives credit to daughter (Elizabeth Albin) for helping with the illustrations on the title page of his “A Natural History of Birds” series…and says that the drawings were made from live birds. The books are worth browsing for their illustrations!
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
Celebrating the whole of life....
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy the photo picks from last month:
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
Powered by Squarespace.
