Georges Cuvier (1769 1832), made a peer of France in 1819 in recognition of his work, was perhaps the most important European scientist of his day. His most famous work, Le Regne Animal, was published in French in 1817; Edward Griffith (1790 1858), a solicitor and amateur naturalist, embarked on in 1824, with a team of colleagues, an English version which resulted in this illustrated sixteen-volume edition with additional material, published between 1827 and 1835. Cuvier was the first biologist to compare the anatomy of fossil animals with living species, and he named the now familiar...

Georges Cuvier (1769 1832), made a peer of France in 1819 in recognition of his work, was perhaps the most important European scientist of his day. His most famous work, Le Regne Animal, was published in French in 1817; Edward Griffith (1790 1858), a solicitor and amateur naturalist, embarked on in 1824, with a team of colleagues, an English version which resulted in this illustrated sixteen-volume edition with additional material, published between 1827 and 1835. Cuvier was the first biologist to compare the anatomy of fossil animals with living species, and he named the now familiar...

James Shirley Hibberd (1825 90) was a journalist and writer on gardening, whose popular works had great influence on middle-class taste. Although not a trained horticulturalist, his many books were based on practical experience. He developed a succession of gardens in North London, concentrating on particular types of plants, and his books reflected this work, with this book of 1864 and The Fern Garden (1869) being particularly successful. He also wrote on garden design, flower arrangement, garden furniture and architecture, and his Rustic Adornments of 1856 (reissued in this series, together...

First published in 1880, this study of the biology and geography of islands investigates some of the most pressing questions of nineteenth-century natural science. Why do countries as far-flung as Britain and Japan share similar flora and fauna when those of neighbouring islands in Malaysia are utterly unalike? What is the origin of life in New Zealand? And why do the geological formations of Scotland and Wales appear to be the result of glaciers when those countries lie in the temperate zone? Dismissing popular theories of submerged continents and 'special creation', Alfred Russel Wallace...

Published in 1842, this important monograph by Charles Darwin (1809 82) formed the first part of a trilogy of geological studies based on observations made during the celebrated second voyage of the Beagle. Influenced by Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, Darwin drew in particular on data from the survey of the Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean to support his theory that subsidence of the ocean floor can account for the formation of coral atolls. He first presented his findings in a paper for the Geological Society of London in 1837, but a heavy workload and illness delayed the...

Intended for young men with limited formal education, this manual was the final project of the landscape gardener John Claudius Loudon (1783 1843). Completed by friends, the book appeared posthumously in 1845. The son of a farmer, Loudon was well aware that men who began their careers as gardeners often became the stewards of estates, bailiffs, or tenant farmers later in life, and he provides here some of the mathematical and technical instruction necessary to carry out those roles successfully. Including sections on fractions, geometry, trigonometry, architectural drawing, and the...

French zoologist and naturalist Georges Cuvier (1769 1832), one of the most eminent scientific figures of the early nineteenth century, is best known for laying the foundations of comparative anatomy and palaeontology. He spent his lifetime studying the anatomy of animals, and broke new ground by comparing living and fossil specimens many he uncovered himself. However, Cuvier always opposed evolutionary theories and was during his day the foremost proponent of catastrophism, a doctrine contending that geological changes were caused by sudden cataclysms. He received universal acclaim when he...

In the nineteenth century and beyond, scientists at Cambridge produced some of the most significant developments in the study of biological variation and inheritance. The work of William Bateson (several of whose books are also reissued in this series) was especially important in this regard. This book, first published in 1906 by the botanist Robert Heath Lock (1879 1915), lucidly traces these and other milestones in modern biological understanding. A readable account is given of the evolution of the discipline since the publication of Darwin's On the Origins of Species in 1859, taking in the...

Arguably the first celebrity scientist, and the epitome of the 'Romantic' natural philosopher, Sir Humphry Davy (1778 1829) was a brilliant lecturer whose popularising of science made him famous. He pioneered electrochemistry, befriended the Romantic poets, invented a safety lamp for miners and even wrote on angling (see On the Safety Lamp and Salmonia, also reissued in this series). Described as 'the last words of a dying Plato', Consolations in Travel was published posthumously in 1830. It is an intriguing mixture of poetry, autobiographical sketches, descriptions of dreams, philosophical...

In 1829, botany had much to prove. A prominent lecturer, John Lindley, noted that 'it has been very much the fashion of late years, in this country, to undervalue the importance of this science, and to consider it an amusement for ladies rather than an occupation for the serious thoughts of man'. In the three documents reissued here, Cambridge botany professor John Stevens Henslow (1796 1861) demonstrates the exacting standards of his course. The work contains an 1829 catalogue of British plants, the skeleton structure of sixteen lectures for 1833 and an 1851 list of potential examination...