“A PRINCE AMONG OBSERVERS”

WHITE, Gilbert. A Naturalist's Calendar. London: B. and J. White, 1795. Octavo, original boards, original printed paper spine label, uncut. Housed in custom half black morocco clamshell box. $950.

First edition, illustrated with a hand-colored copperplate engraving of a hybrid bird, in original boards.

A posthumously published selection of observations from naturalist and clergyman White, best remembered for his Natural History of Selborne (1789). "White was a prince among observers, nearly always observing the right thing in the right way, and placing before us in a few words the living being he observed" (DNB). "It is due to the labors of innumerable scholars of White's observational abilities that we owe the accumulation of detail which led eventually to the erection of the major evolutionary hypothesis" (Eiseley, 14). Osleriana 4225. Bookplate. Owner's pencil inscription to verso of front free endpaper.

Interior fine. Mild age-wear to spine, binding quite strong; light rubbing to boards. An excellent copy in original boards.