Description
This text reassesses the life and work of the 18th-century naturalist Gilbert White, author of the “Natural History of Selborne”. It aims to present a new and more comprehensible picture of White both as observer and as rigorous behavioural investigator. By means of a detailed study of the naturalist’s essays, correspondence and record books – the latter covering a period of some 40 years – Ted Dadswell provides a convincing account of the pioneering and innovative White, within the field of 18th-century “natural knowledge”, and rescues him at the same time from an undeserved reputation as a charming but naive eccentric.