About Wild Nature

T. Fisher Unwin, 1913. Hard Cover. Very Good. About Wild Nature. With illustrations by the author. Seventh edition. xvi, 261, [12]pp adverts, half-title., portrait frontispiece and 22 plates. A near fine copy in original decorative cloth. 8vo. T. Fisher Unwin. [1913]. ~ Eliza Brightwen (also known as Lizzie Brightwen or Eliza Elder) (1830-1906) was a Scottish naturalist, and following the death of her first husband, in 1860 married George Gosse. Self-taught, many of her observations were made on the grounds of The Grove, the family estate at Stanmore, where she kept a private menagerie. She kept copious notes but only started to write for publication in her sixtieth year. She was described, in 1912, as "one of the most popular naturalists of her day." After her death, Edmund Gosse arranged for the publication of her two posthumous works Last Hours with Nature (1908) and Eliza Brightwen, the Life and Thoughts of a Naturalist (1909), both edited by W. H. Chesson, and the latter book with an introduction and epilogue by Gosse. She was an early conservationist, a member of the Zoological Society and the Selborne Society for the Preservation of Birds. Although initially a museum collector, this gave way to an interest in living creatures when she began to use binoculars and cameras. She opposed falconry and wrote pamphlets and essays deploring the use of feathers in millinery.