Letters from Alabama: Chiefly Relating to Natural HIstory (Library of Alabama Classics) - Softcover

Gosse, Philip Henry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0817306838 ISBN 13: 9780817306830

Publisher: University Alabama Press, 1993

Synopsis

Philip Henry Gosse (1810-1888), a British naturalist, left home at age 17 and made his way to Alabama in 1838, where he had heard educated people were in demand. He was employed by Judge Reuben Saffold at Pleasant Hill in Dallas County as a teacher for about a dozen children of local landowners, but his principal interest was natural history. During the eight months he lived in th Black Belt he watched, listened, thought, took notes, and made sketches--activities that eventually led to Letters from Alabama. He lived among Alabamians, talked and listened to them, saw them at their best and their worst, and came to understand their hopes and fears. They were a part of the natural world, and he paid attention to them as any good scientist would. With the skills of a scientist and the temperament of an artist, Gosse set down an account of natural life in frontier Alabama that has no equal. Written to no one in particular, a common literary device of the period, the letters were first published in a magazine, and in 1859 appeared as a book. By that time Gosse was an established scholar and one of England’s most noted scientific illustrators.

About this title

Book Description:

The English naturalist Philip Gosse spent nine months in 1838-9 in a small town in Alabama. This 1859 work recounts his voyage from Philadelphia to Mobile, Alabama, and the environment around his new home in the hills, with vivid descriptions of the plants, animals and insects he observed there.

About the Author:

Harvey H. Jackson is Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Jacksonville State University.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0817306838
• ISBN 13: 9780817306830
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 360
• Editor: Hamilton Virginia Van Der Veer