The Wonder Book of Nature

The Wonder Book of Nature for Boys and Girls

Ward, Lock & Co., London and Melbourne, Ninth Edition. Undated; the 1930s. Nature in all its phases: birds, beasts, flowers and the universe, as the cover promises.

Gulls wheel over a cliff on the cover, and inside the book keeps that promise of air and salt. It is the Wonder Book series turned towards the countryside: the birds of the hedgerow and shore, the animals of the field, wild flowers, the pond, the night sky. Eight colour plates and nearly three hundred and fifty illustrations, many of them photographs taken with the patience that nature photography demanded before the long lens.

These books were written for a generation of children who were sent out of the house after breakfast and expected back at dusk, and the tone assumes that the reader will go and look for themselves. It teaches how to tell one gull from another, what a squirrel does with its autumn, and how to be quiet enough for things to come near. None of that has dated.

This is the cleanest copy of the Wonder Books we have had. The pictorial boards are bright, with light rubbing to the edges and the spine cloth a little faded; the title page is fresh and the plates are unfaded. As with all genuine antiquarian books, previous owners may have left names or marks, and we see these as conversations across time rather than flaws.

For walkers, birdwatchers, and anyone who grew up with a jam jar and a net.

Please note:

Each antiquarian book in the Ada & Vera Cabinet of Curiosities is unique. Condition will vary, and no two copies tell quite the same story.

Delivery

Books travel further than cheese. Delivered to your London hotel or any UK address (£9, free over £100), or sent tracked to the United States (£18, five to ten days). Printed books enter the US duty-free; the parcel carries a customs declaration and one copy is all there is.

Fifty pence from this book goes to the cats of London. Buttons insisted.