Publications

The Society’s main publication is Archives of Natural History containing refereed, illustrated papers and book reviews on the history and bibliography of natural history in its broadest sense, and in all periods and all cultures. It is published for the Society by Edinburgh University Press.

An informal Newsletter is produced twice a year and distributed free to members. It contains details of forthcoming meetings, news of other events, a lively Notes & Queries section, members’ news and new publications.

From time to time, the Society also publishes other works that are relevant to its members’ interests.

Naturalists in the Field
Collecting, Recording and Preserving the Natural World from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century

Editor:Arthur MacGregor
With a Foreword by Sir David Attenborough
Published by Brill, 2018
1,040pp. illus.,ISBN: 978-90043238434 (hb)
€270, US$324
E-ISBN: 978-9004323841, €245, US$ $294.

Contributors are: Marie Addyman, Peter Barnard, Paul D. Brinkman, Ian Convery, Peter Davis, Felix Driver, Florike Egmond, Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, Geoff Hancock, Stephen Harris, Hanna Hodacs, Stuart Houston, Dominik Huenniger, Rob Huxley, Charlie Jarvis, Malgosia Nowak-Kemp, Shepard Krech III, Mark Lawley, Arthur Lucas, Marco Masseti, Geoff Moore, Pat Morris, Charles Nelson, Robert Peck, Helen Scales, Han F. Vermeulen, and Glyn Williams.

History & Mystery is an anthology of the most interesting, bizarre and entertaining notes and queries from the Society’s Newsletters.Some of the notes are witty commentaries. Some of the topics are unexpected, even bizarre. Some of the reprinted queries are still unanswered.

Professor Geoff Moore writes:

‘As a more ephemeral publication than the Society’s journal Archives of Natural History and not being available online (except for the most recent issues), the Newsletter is much less readily available for consultation; few are likely to have access to the full run since 1977. If you’ve ever wondered what Broadwood pianos, criminals, wrapping paper, forged wills, the Secret Service, bad lighting, or Blandings Castle have ever had to do with natural history, then read on. There is erudition aplenty in the contributions made by stalwarts of the Society to the Newsletter. It seemed a shame that the scholarship encapsulated in its back-numbers had so limited a present circulation.’

Compiled by E. Charles Nelson, History and Mystery is 208pp and the beautiful cover features paintings by the artist Rebecca Jewell. For more information on the contents, visit the Index and list of contributors. This can be ordered through the Society directly.

Other publications of interest include:

The History of Zoos and Aquariums: From Royal gifts to Biodiversity Conservation (2014) was published to celebrate the 75^th Anniversary of SHNH – the Society for the History of Natural History in 2012 and the 80^th Anniversary of Chester Zoo in 2014. (Out of print.)
Darwin in the Archives (2009). Papers on Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin from the Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History and Archives of Natural History published before 2005. Edited by E. Charles Nelson, Duncan M Porter. A listing of its contents is available here. Available from Edinburgh University Press.
A century of Discovery: Antarctic exploration and the Southern Ocean (2005). Papers presented at an international symposium, held at the Southampton Oceanography Centre, 28–30 June 2004, published in association with the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and the British Antarctic Survey. Available from Edinburgh University Press as Archives of Natural History Vol 32 (2) 2005.
The Sherborn Fund Facsimiles, a series commemorating the founder of the Society, Charles Davies Sherborn, includes Alexander von Humboldt’s 1807 Essai sur la geographie des plantes.
The Society also co-published John Thackray’s A guide to the official archives of The Natural History Museum (London, 1998).

For more information see Other publications.

SHNH Society members are entitled to a 20% discount on all EUP books and a 10% discount on EUP journals. Please browse the EUP website.