Announcing the SHNH Natural History Book Prize (Thackray Medal) longlist

We are delighted to announce the longlist nominations for the SHNH Natural History Book Prize (John Thackray Medal), awarded for the best book published on the history or bibliography of natural history in the preceding two years.

We send our warmest congratulations to all authors and publishers.

The Redouté brothers: Masters of scientific illustration in Paris
Hans Walter Lack, James A. Compton & Martin W. Callmander. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. 2024. 822pp. ISBN 9782383270201.

Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark
Leigh Ann Henion. Algonquin Books. 2024. 336pp. ISBN-13 9781643753362.

The Rhinoceros of South Asia
L. C. (Kees) Rookmaaker. Brill Imprint. 2024. 836pp.  ISBN 978-90-04-54488-8.

The Vasculum or Botanical Collecting Box Symbol of the Nineteenth-Century Botanist, Now an Obsolete Relic
Régine Fabri. National Botanic Garden of Belgium. 2024. 269pp. ISBN 9783823618201.

Philip Henry Gosse. A biography
Douglas Wertheimer. Brethren Archivists and Historians Network. 2024. 754pp. ISBN 13 ‎9781739128326.

Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean
Andrew Griebeler. University of Chicago Press. 2024. 344pp. ISBN 978022682679.

The Unnatural Trade Slavery, Abolition, and Environmental Writing, 1650-1807
Brycchan Carey. Yale University Press. 2024. 280pp. ISBN 9780300224412.

More on the titles below

The Redouté brothers: Masters of scientific illustration in Paris
Hans Walter Lack, James A. Compton & Martin W. Callmander. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. 2024. 822pp. ISBN 978-2-38327-020-1.

This work provides the first comprehensive biography of the three Redouté brothers, Antoine-Ferdinand, Pierre-Joseph and Henri-Joseph. Originating from humble origins in the Ardennes, they all took root in Paris where Antoine-Ferdinand became a decorative painter. By contrast, Pierre-Joseph and Henri-Joseph embarked as botanical illustrators on a scientific and aesthetic career including numerous contributions to the prestigious royal paintings on vellum.

The central figure of this work is Pierre-Joseph, whose accurate illustrations document science during the late phase of the Enlightenment, throughout the turbulences of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic era and into the Restoration. Thus, Pierre-Joseph provided works for Empress Josephine and Queen Maria Amalia. An indefatigable worker, he produced an enormous number of botanical illustrations, many of a very high calibre. A large number of which were reproduced as engravings for a long list of publications which multiplied by many times the effect of his work.

His association with the new Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, but also notably with C.-L. L’Héritier and the Geneva botanist A. P. de Candolle, ensured successive commissions. Henri-Joseph joined the scientific team that accompanied Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, documenting plants, animals and artefacts. Although his output was more geared towards paintings of animals, he was frequently asked to contribute botanical works for Pierre-Joseph. In essence, the focus of this book is not on the written record but on the pictorial. Furthermore, it offers a panorama of the travellers, collectors, scientists, gardeners and illustrators in one of the great centres of the time – Paris.

For those interested in reading more about The Redouté brothers  you can access a recent review by Alex George in the Society’s Journal, Archives of Natural History https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/anh.2025.0979

Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark
Leigh Ann Henion. Algonquin Books. 2024. 336pp. ISBN 13 9781643753362.

The Rhinoceros of South Asia
 L. C. (Kees) Rookmaaker. Brill Imprint.  2024. 836pp. ISBN: 978-90-04-54488-8.

The rhinoceros is an iconic animal. Three species once inhabited South Asia, two of which disappeared over a century ago. This survey aims to reconstruct the historical distribution of these large mammals resulting in new maps showing the extent of their occurrences. Thousands of sources varied in time and nature are used to study the interactions between man and rhinoceros.

The text is supported by over 700 illustrations and 38 maps showing the importance of the rhinoceros in the scientific and cultural fabric of Asia and beyond.

The Vasculum or Botanical Collecting Box Symbol of the Nineteenth-Century Botanist, Now an Obsolete Relic
Régine Fabri. National Botanic Garden of Belgium. 2024. 269 pp. ISBN 9783823618201.

Known as a botanical box, collecting box, or vasculum, this green or black tin box has accompanied generations of botanists and plant hunters for more than two centuries. It has housed myriads of specimens, some of which are still the pride of our great herbariums. A scientific device born in Europe at the dawn of the 18th century and recommended by Linnaeus, the vasculum quickly conquered the world. The boxes of the great names in botany that have been preserved to this day and the many portraits show the diversity of the models used.

An intriguing, even disturbing, piece of scientific equipment, the vasculum sometimes earned its owner suspicion of potato theft, poaching or smuggling, and even imprisonment. The herbarium box went on to appeal to a wide audience and became almost commonplace, as evidenced by the many illustrations and references to it in literature, notably by Jules Verne, Conan Doyle and Enid Blyton.

The green box also features prominently in the work of artists such as Carl Spitzweg and Raphaël Ritz. This volume, richly illustrated with photos, images and quotations, traces the history of this obsolete accessory – now exhibited in museums and much sought-after by collectors – from its strange origins to its obsolescence, via its hours of glory.

This English edition is a revised and enlarged version of the French edition (2021).

Philip Henry Gosse. A biography
Douglas Wertheimer. Brethren Archivists and Historians Network. 2024. 754pp. ISBN 13 ‎9781739128326.

In this bold, transformative biography of a remarkable Victorian naturalist and leading figure among evangelical Christians known as Brethren, P. H. Gosse is finally freed from the inaccurate image of him presented by his son, Edmund Gosse, and others. As a naturalist, Gosse was a pioneer, innovator, and entrepreneur who was renowned as an observer, writer, populariser, lecturer and illustrator. At the same time, with ‘tongue and pen’ Gosse promoted the Brethren outlook, helping to spread the movement across the world and leading an assembly in England. This wide-ranging biography includes a full account of Gosse’s relationship with his wife, Emily (one of the foremost female religious tract writers of her time), and their son, Edmund (the man of letters). Douglas Wertheimer bases his comprehensive interpretation on unpublished correspondence and manuscripts, historical newspapers, and primary and secondary sources. The result is a new, and more historically faithful, study of virtually every aspect of P. H. Gosse’s life, family life and work.

Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean
Andrew Griebeler. University of Chicago Press. 2024. 344pp. ISBN 9780226826790.

This book traces the history of botanical illustration in the Mediterranean from antiquity to the early modern period. By examining Greek, Latin, and Arabic botanical inquiry in this early era, Andrew Griebeler shows how diverse and sophisticated modes of plant depiction emerged and ultimately gave rise to practices now recognized as central to modern botanical illustration. The author draws on centuries of remarkable and varied documentation from across Europe and the Mediterranean.

Lavishly illustrated, Botanical Icons marshals ample evidence for a dynamic and critical tradition of botanical inquiry and nature observation in the late antique and medieval Mediterranean. The author reveals that many of the critical practices characteristic of modern botanical illustrations began in premodern manuscript culture. Consequently, he demonstrates that the distinctions between pre- and early modern botanical illustration center more on the advent of print, the expansion of collections and documentation, and the narrowing of the range of accepted forms of illustration than on the invention of critical and observational practices exclusive to modernity.

Griebeler’s emphasis on continuity, intercultural collaboration, and the gradual transformation of Mediterranean traditions of critical botanical illustration persuasively counters previously prevalent narratives of rupture and Western European exceptionalism in the histories of art and science.

The Unnatural Trade Slavery, Abolition, and Environmental Writing, 1650-1807
Brycchan Carey. Yale University Press. 2024. 280pp. ISBN 9780300224412.

How did late eighteenth-century British abolitionists come to view the slave trade and British colonial slavery as unnatural, a “dread perversion” of nature?

Focusing on slavery in the Americas, and the Caribbean in particular, alongside travelers’ accounts of West Africa, Brycchan Carey shows that before the mid-eighteenth century, natural histories were a primary source of information about slavery for British and colonial readers.

These natural histories were often ambivalent toward slavery, but they increasingly adopted a proslavery stance to accommodate the needs of planters by representing slavery as a “natural” phenomenon. From the mid-eighteenth century, abolitionists adapted the natural history form to their own writings and many naturalists became associated with the antislavery movement.

Carey draws on descriptions of slavery and the slave trade created by naturalists and other travelers with an interest in natural history, including Richard Ligon, Hans Sloane, Griffith Hughes, Samuel Martin, and James Grainger.

These environmental writings were used by abolitionists such as Anthony Benezet, James Ramsay, Thomas Clarkson, and Olaudah Equiano to build a compelling case that slavery was unnatural, a case that was popularized by abolitionist poets such as Thomas Day, Edward Rushton, Hannah More, and William Cowper.

Winners will receive the SHNH John Thackray Medal, instituted in 2000 to commemorate the life and work of John Thackray (1948–1999), Past President of SHNH, and an outstanding scholar of the history of science with an enviable knowledge of natural history. He served as an Officer of the Society for the History of Natural History for 24 years (1973–1997) and in 1999 became the Society’s President. He authored 30 books and articles including Guide to the Official Archives of the Natural History Museum (1998).