Philip Henry Gosse's detailed watercolors of Alabama's native insects and plants represent a landmark in the annals of American natural history. Offered for the first time are the complete full-color illustrations from Gosse's Entomologia Alabamensis, along with a biographical essay placing Gosse's work in the context of his long and fruitful life.

Born in 1810 in Worcester, England, the young Philip Henry Gosse developed a passion for the natural world. Having learned the basics of miniature portraiture from his father, Gosse quickly took for his artistic subjects the...

This new and improved edition of Letters from Alabama offers a valuable window into pioneer Alabama and the landscape and life-forms encountered by early settlers of the state.

Philip Henry Gosse (1810-1888), a British naturalist, left home at age seventeen and made his way to Alabama in 1838. He was employed by Judge Reuben Saffold and other planters near Pleasant Hill in Dallas County as a teacher for about a dozen of their children, but his principal interest was natural history. Letters from Alabama is a personalized record of Gosse's perceptive observations during his...