
Fabre’s Book of Insects (1921) - Petiver
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/fabres-book-of-insects-1921/
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wazoox
I don't know how's the English translation, but I've read the original version
and it's really wonderful. Not only for the insects, but it provides at times
fascinating glimpses of ordinary life in the 19th century: Fabre tells how as
a boy in the 1830s, up until 7 he walked only barefoot and only wore year-long
a ragged shirt that dropped to his knees; also don't miss his visit to the
village butcher's backyard in search of necrophagous insects...

[edit]: reading the article, this is an abridged version of the Entomological
Memoirs. Definitely read the thicker tome, it's well worth it. Plus
practically nothing in it had been invalidated scientifically (he was opposed
to Evolution, but was not a bigot; he had an interesting and rich
correspondence with Darwin).

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throwaway1239Mx
The thicker one (in english) may be somewhat difficult to find.

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/works-of-jh-
fabre/oclc/316395...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/works-of-jh-
fabre/oclc/316395259&referer=brief_results)

As far as I can tell, there are 3 locations (one in The British Library, St.
Pancras under a slightly different entry) in Worldcat, and nothing recently
(re)published or scanned, apart from various selections concerning specific
insects.

If someone knows otherwise, please do share!

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throwaway1239Mx
The final volume in Teixeira's series (at least, that published on the US side
of the pond, and available online) appears to be the Life of the Scorpion
([https://archive.org/details/lifeofscorpion00fabr/](https://archive.org/details/lifeofscorpion00fabr/))
which unfortunately does not have his name attached in the metadata. It is
_also_ lacking a translator's note (as he died in 1921, and published 1923,
that's not entirely surprising.).

The list of translations at the beginning of Life of the Scorpion, however,
appears to be the best aggregation for my above question. Note that 'More
Hunting Wasps' also does not appear with Teixeira's name attached in
archive.org.

Florence Bicknell also translated what appears to be a rather excellent series
on science and natural philosophy by J.H. Fabre, which is freely available:
[https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Bicknell%2...](https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Bicknell%2C+Florence+Constable%22),
though these lack the fine illustrations in the OP.

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elliottkember
As a child I thoroughly enjoyed reading Gerald Durrell's books about his
childhood in Corfu. All a wonderful read, both for his interest in zoology and
the various characters that show up. I highly recommend My Family and Other
Animals as a starter. At some point his older brother gives him a copy of this
Fabre book and I remembered the reference immediately.

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elhudy
Although not geared towards children, David Fairchild's [url =
[https://books.google.com/books/about/Book_of_Monsters.html?i...](https://books.google.com/books/about/Book_of_Monsters.html?id=ji-
cIimRmq4C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false)]
"Book of Monsters" [/url] is another fascinating glimpse into the lives of
insects from the 1920's.

edit: guess I'm not hacker enough to make a working URL ;)

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xipho
Find this, and much more at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
[https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/71078#page/11/mode/...](https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/71078#page/11/mode/1up)

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t0mislav
Nice hand-drawn images inside.

