Insects at Home. Being a Popular Account of British Insects, their Structure, Habits, and Transformations. With Upwards of 700 Figures by E. A. Smith and J. B. Zwecker, Engraved by G. Pearson. New Edition. by Wood, J. G - 1881

London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1881. Hardcover. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. Large octavo (215 x 140 mm). Contemporary tan calf prize binding, spine elaborately gilt in compartments, black morocco label, double lines rules to boards and Hanley Castle Grammar School Crest to upper board gilt, marbled edges and endpapers, turn-overs ruled in blind. Colour frontispiece and 20 engraved plates, engravings throughout the text. Contemporary presentation inscription to the front blank. Boards a little rubbed and scuffed, small gouge from top edge of lower board, blank piece of paper pasted over an inscription on the verso of the front free endpaper, light spotting to contents. A very good copy. An attractively bound and copiously illustrated work on British insects by the naturalist John George Wood (1827-1889), originally published in 1872. Wood began his career in the Church of England, but from the early 1850s "was developing a career as a natural historian; his first book, The Illustrated Natural History, was published in 1851. Several more works had followed by 1856, when he began to give occasional lectures on natural history subjects. Wood's appeal as a populariser of natural history was spotted by the publisher George Routledge. Routledge asked him to contribute to a shilling series of handbooks, starting with Common Objects of the Seashore (1857), which enjoyed huge popularity among holiday-makers to the coast. Common Objects of the Country (1858) had an even greater success, and Routledge followed this with a three-volume Illustrated Natural History (1859) by Wood. Many future naturalists were said to have been inspired by reading these books at an early age...Wood wrote more than seventy books, some under the pseudonym George Forrest. The majority of them were on natural history, but he also published works on the history of the biblical period and English scenery, co-wrote books on athletics-such as Athletic Sports and Manly Exercises (1864)-and edited titles as diverse as Gilbert White's Natural History of Selbourne and the Boy's Own Magazine. His own natural history titles, such as Our Garden Friends and Foes (1863) and Handy Natural History (1886), were not rigorously scientific but were influential in popularizing the subject. His works on microscopy such as Common Objects of the Microscope (1861) and Nature's Teaching (1877) are still in use by amateur microscopists who hold him in affection" (ODNB).