The Naturalist on the River Amazons

2 vol., engraved frontispieces, 8 engraved plates (including folding map of the Amazon), title vignettes, 33 text illustrations, later quarter calf over marbled boards, speckled edges, text block corners rounded, 8vo, London, John Murray, 1863

English naturalist and explorer, Henry Bates (1825-1892) is most famous for his two year expedition through the Amazon rainforest with his friend and colleague Alfred Russel Wallace. Bates returned to England in1859, after eleven years in South America. He supported his own entomological collecting interests by supplying specimens for public and private collections. Bates sent back over 14,712 species (mostly of insects) of which 8,000 were, according to Bates, new to science.

He was encouraged to write his account by Darwin, with whom he frequently corresponded, and who recommended Bates to his own publisher, John Murray. The resulting work became “a major contribution to the knowledge and literature of Amazonia” and “an immediate success and travel classic” (ODNB), selling successfully throughout the 19th century and being translated into numerous languages. Darwin described it as “the best work of natural history travels ever published in England” (Life and Letters, p. 381).

The wood engravings in the text are after several leading natural history illustrators, including E. W. Robinson, Joseph Wolf, Josiah Wood Whymper, and Johann Baptist Zwecker.

[Borba de Moraes p.91; Sabin 3932a; Troelstra, Natural History Travel Narratives, pp. 55-56.]