THE LIFE OF THE FLY - THE INSECTS' - HOMER, WITH WHICH ARE INTERSPERSED SOME CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY J. HENRI FABRE

J. Henri Fabre (translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos)

Published by Hodder & Stoughton [The People's Library series], London, 1928

About this Item

The People's Library. No date. Circa 1920s. (Copyright date 1913 on the publisher's prelims page). First reprint of the first edition in English. ***Very good in blue cloth-covered boards with black titles and rules to spine. Edges of boards slightly rubbed. Tiny, navy printed and white contemporaneous bookseller's book label to bottom of front pastedown: ' B. H. Blackwell ltd Booksellers 50 and 51 Broad Street, Oxford'. Contemporaneous date 'March 1928' in soft pencil to front free endpaper and tiny number written in ink to top of front free endpaper. Offsetting to front and rear free endpapers. Owner's name in black fountain pen ink: 'H.? Williams' to top of title-page. Tiny piece missing from bottom corner of title-page. Edges of text-block lightly foxed. Interior pages clean. No dustwrapper. 176mm x 124mm. 318 pages including index to rear. ***Contents: Translator's note; Chapters: The Harmas; The Anthrax; Another Prober (Perforator); Larval Dimorphism; Heredity; My Schooling; The Pond; The Caddis Worm; The Greenbottles; The Grey Flesh-Flies; The Bumble-bee Fly; Mathematical Memories: Newton's Binomial Theorem; Mathematical Memories: My Little Table; The Bluebottle: The Laying; The Bluebottle: The Grub; A Parasite of the Maggot; Recollections of Childhood; Insects and Mushrooms; A Memorable Lesson; Industrial Chemistry. ***'I take leave of the mushrooms with regret: there would be so many other questions to solve concerning them! Why do the maggots eat the Satanic boletus and scorn the imperial mushroom? How is it that they find delicious what we find poisonous, and why is it that what seems exquisite to our taste is loathsome to theirs? Can there be special compounds in mushrooms, alkaloids, apparently, which vary according to the biological genus?' (quote from page 281, chapter XIX: A Memorable Lesson) ***Fabre's Souvenirs Entomologiques is a series of texts on insects and arachnids, of which this book is one. He influenced the later writings of Charles Darwin, who called Fabre "an inimitable observer". Fabre wrote in a relaxed, biographical style, and as such are very readable as well as scientific. A classic entomology title. ***First reprint of the first edition in English in its original cloth-covered boards. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.

Seller Inventory # 3823

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE LIFE OF THE FLY - THE INSECTS' - HOMER, WITH WHICH ARE INTERSPERSED SOME CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY J. HENRI FABRE
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton [The People's Library series], London
• Publication Date: 1928
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Reprint of the First Edition in En
• Printing: First Impression
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature in Translation
  • Science