Philip Henry Gosse

"This excellent presentation of Gosse's insect paintings is a perfect complement to his classic Letters from Alabama. Beautifully reproduced here, with a full biography of Gosse, they are an important contribution to the history of American science."
--E.O. Wilson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Anthill and Sociobiology

Philip Henry Gosse was a remarkably talented English 19th-century scientific author and artist. He was a keen observer of small marine, insect, and animal life who wrote and illustrated many books on his observations. In his youth, he lived for a while in Newfoundland and, of course, Alabama, where he wrote of his scientific observations and created many wonderful, exquisitely detailed, life-size paintings of insects, using techniques of miniature painting he learned from his father. He was a well-known scientist, but also a devout fundamentalist Christian to whom nature was evidence of God's creation. Although his Letters from Alabama and some other books are still in print, the exquisite paintings from his notebook, Entomologia Alabamensis, had never been published. Here, on the bicentennial of his birth, Mullen and Littleton (both, Auburn Univ.) present them for the first time, together with an extended essay about Gosse's life and work and its significance. The 49 beautiful, detailed plates depict many insects, especially butterflies and moths, some with the plants on which they feed. All are carefully identified with current scientific names. This significant contribution to the history of science as well as art history should interest libraries collecting in these areas. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General, academic, and professional readers, all levels.
--CHOICE