Author: Pennant, Thomas:
Title: A Tour from Alston-Moor to Harrowgate, and Brimham Crags.
Description: London: printed by C. Mercier and Co., Northumberland-Court, Strand, for John Scott, no.447, Strand, 1804. First edition. 4to., pp.[x], 130 + 9 plates as called for. Half-title. Title-page repaired at top fore-edge corner, some toning transferred from plates onto facing pages. Half green sheep, gilt title to spine, marbled paper boards, edges sprinkled brown, marbled paste-downs but free endpapers replaced with plain blue. Joints worn, boards quite toned, corners a bit frayed, still very good. Edited by Pennant's son David and published posthumously. 'Pennant's travels and natural history are distinguished by his personal energy, a keen observational sense, and by methodological organization and attention to facts. In such ways, and in his friendship and widespread correspondence with others of like interests throughout Britain and Europe, he may be said to exemplify those gentleman scholars of nature in the later eighteenth century whose interests in natural knowledge aimed at national improvement through intellectual enquiry. While he is perhaps better remembered for his Scottish tours, his British Zoology and Arctic Zoology in particular were important pioneering works and established him in the eyes of contemporaries as a leading European natural historian. For one modern scholar Pennant should be considered 'the leading British zoologist after Ray and before Darwin' (Beer, vi).' (Withers, ODNB)

Keywords: Early Printing (to c.1800, all subjects);British & Irish History & Topography


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