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Although the collecting of butterflies is today an emotive subject, it is impossible to separate a history of British butterflies from a history of their collectors, without whose activities our knowledge of the identification, occurrence, distribution and variation of British butterflies would be much the poorer.
This entertaining and informative book charts the history of British butterflies and their collectors since the seventeenth century, a time when serious interest in natural history had its beginnings. It contains brief biographies, with contemporary portraits where available, of 101 deceased lepidopterists, generously laced with anecdotes and quotations from their own and others' accounts of their exploits. In addition to the numerous monochrome figures, the book includes colour plates by 14 artists of British butterflies from Petiver to Frohawk (including two illustrations never previously reproduced), as well as colour photographs of historic specimens.