Henry Dresser and Victorian ornithology: Birds, books and business
ISBN: 9781526116017
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Manchester University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: History of Science & Technology ; History ; Zoology ; British Studies ; European Studies;

This book explores the life of Henry Dresser (1838-1915), one of the most productive British ornithologists of the mid-late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and is largely based on previously unpublished archival material. Dresser travelled widely and spent time in Texas during the American Civil War. He built enormous collections of skins and eggs of birds from Europe, North America and Asia, which formed the basis of over 100 publications, including some of the finest bird books of the late nineteenth century. Dresser was a leading figure in scientific society and in the early bird conservation movement; his correspondence and diaries reveal the inner workings, motivations, personal relationships and rivalries that existed among the leading ornithologists.

Henry A. McGhie is Head of Collections and Curator of Zoology at Manchester Museum, the University of Manchester

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