This is an attractively bound and profusely illustrated work illustrated throughout with original woodcuts intended for a wide reading audience in the Victorian period.

This is an attractively bound and profusely illustrated work illustrated throughout with original woodcuts intended for a wide reading audience in the Victorian period.

John George Wood (1827-1889) an ordained priest was from the 1850's an active and popular natural historian; The Illustrated Natural History was his first book originally published in 1851. Wood's appeal as a populariser of natural history was spotted by the publisher George Routledge who promoted his work throughout the second half of the nineteenth century including this set of The Illustrated Natural History, which appeared in a number of editions. Future naturalists were said to have been inspired by reading these books at an early age. Many of the entries cover Australia and the Pacific region.