Green cloth binding with gilt title and decoration on the spine. Embossed pattern on both boards.

F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feel and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

A very clean rendition

The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, or just The Natural History of Selborne is a book by English parson-naturalist Gilbert White (1720–1793). It was first published in 1789 by his brother Benjamin. It has been continuously in print since then, with nearly 300 editions up to 2007.

The book was published late in White’s life, compiled from a mixture of his letters to other naturalists—Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington; a ‘Naturalist’s Calendar’ (in the second edition) comparing phenology observations made by White and William Markwick of the first appearances in the year of different animals and plants; and observations of natural history organized systematically by species and group. A second volume, less often reprinted, covered the antiquities of Selborne. Some of the letters were never posted and were written for the book.

White’s Natural History was at once well received by contemporary critics and the public and continued to be admired by a diverse range of nineteenth and twentieth century literary figures. His work has been seen as an early contribution to ecology and in particular to phenology. The book has been enjoyed for its charm and apparent simplicity, and the way that it creates a vision of pre-industrial England.

The original manuscript has been preserved and is displayed in the Gilbert White Museum at The Wakes, Selborne.

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. The book has been continuously in print since its first publication. 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.