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Loving insects : John Abbot's drawings & natural history collecting in the Atlantic world, 1760s-1840s / Beth Fowkes Tobin.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Tobin, Beth Fowkes, Author.
- Series:
- Wormsloe Foundation nature book
- A Wormsloe Foundation nature books
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Abbot, John, 1751-1840.
- Abbot, John.
- Entomologists--United States--Biography.
- Entomologists.
- Natural history illustrators--United States--Biography.
- Natural history illustrators.
- Insects--United States--History--19th century.
- Insects.
- Insects in art.
- Natural history illustration--History--19th century.
- Natural history illustration.
- Art and science--History--19th century.
- Art and science.
- United States.
- Genre:
- Biographies
- History
- Biographies.
- Physical Description:
- xiv, 253 pages : color illustrations ; 29 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Athens : The University of Georgia Press, [2026]
- Summary:
- "John Abbot's love of insects manifested itself in his exquisite watercolor drawings of butterflies, moths, beetles, cicadas, dragonflies, wasps, and spiders; in his terse notes that described his encounters with these creatures; and in a spectacular book with the unprepossessing title The Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia (London, 1798), considered to be one of the finest illustrated entomological publications of its era. Born in London in 1751, Abbot journeyed to the American South in 1774 to collect and draw insects and birds for natural history collectors in Britain. Although he had had ambitions as a young man to join the ranks of London's natural history illustrators, he never returned to Britain, living most of his long life in Georgia, where he made thousands of watercolor drawings of insects and supplied thousands of insect specimens to his British, European, and American clients. Despite his accomplishments as a naturalist and an artist, he is little known today. This book aims to rectify this omission by detailing his activities as a natural history artist, a specimen hunter, and a naturalist, and by claiming a space for him as a major figure in the history of early American natural history"-- Provided by publisher.
- Contents:
- A peculiar liking for insects : An introduction
- Going abroad to collect foreign insects : Local knowledge and the global circulation of insect specimens
- The harvest of many years of industry : The material practices of insect collecting
- An admirer of nature's beauties : Abbot's composite insect drawings
- Francillon and LeConte : Collecting, curating, and using Abbot's scientific drawings
- Beauty and accuracy : Abbot's scientific contribution to Insects of Georgia
- Abbot's legacy.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780820373577
- 0820373575
- OCLC:
- 1543002206
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