The Birds of America is one of the best known natural history books ever produced and also the most valuable - a complete set sold at auction in December 2010 for GBP7.3 million, which is a world record for a book. First published in double elephant size (approximately a metre tall) in the first half of the nineteenth century, it is famous for its stunning life-size illustrations of birds set within landscaped backgrounds. The book was issued inparts over 11 years and only around 200 completed sets were ever produced. Less than 120 of these survive today, locked away in museums, galleries and private collections around the world. To create this edition of Audubon's masterpiece, the Natural History Museum's own original edition was disbound and each of the 435 beautiful hand-coloured prints was specially photographed. The artworks are accompanied by the scientific descriptions that were used in the original The Birds of America and there is also a new introduction by David Allen Sibley.

Natural history illustration is a popular choice for artists and perfect for developing colour technique.

John James Audubon is arguably America's most widely recognized and collected artist. His Birds of America has been reproduced often, beginning with the double elephant folio printed by Havill in England, followed by a much smaller "Octavo" edition printed in Philadelphia and sold by subscription. After Audubon's death, his family arranged with the New York printer Julius Bien to produce another elephant folio edition, this time by the new chromolithographic process. It too would be sold by subscription, but the venture, begun in 1858, was brought to an abrupt end by the Civil War. Only 150 plates were produced, and the number remaining today is slight; they are among the rarest and most sought after Audubon prints. Bound in cloth with a full cloth slipcase, this beautifully produced book is the first complete reproduction of Bien chromolithographs and will become the centerpiece of any bird lover's library.

Many people believe in Jesus Christ but want nothing to do with the church. Some others who call themselves committed Christians will not commit to a local church. We have to be honest. There is a dearth in the church in many countries. At times the church has been very sick and the illness seemed to be terminal; yet it survives and in many places grows phenomenally. "Dry Bones can Live", addresses this problem and proposes a dynamic remedy; setting out a strategy for local churches to consider. It is full of stories from the pastor's casebook, which illustrate the reality and effectiveness of the Gospel in transforming lives

This book is based on William Caxton's translation of 15th century French author Raoul Lefevre book Histoire de Jason (he wrote in 1460). The Histoire de Jason is known from 20 manuscripts and 30 different printed editions, and was translated in English in 1477 by William Caxton, and in Dutch in 1485. Lefevre was the chaplain of Philip the Good, the creator of the Order of the Golden Fleece, which was based on the classical Jason story.

This book is based on William Caxton's translation of 15th century French author Raoul Lefevre book Histoire de Jason (he wrote in 1460). The Histoire de Jason is known from 20 manuscripts and 30 different printed editions, and was translated in English in 1477 by William Caxton, and in Dutch in 1485. Lefevre was the chaplain of Philip the Good, the creator of the Order of the Golden Fleece, which was based on the classical Jason story.

Everything about Suffolk is unexpected: A New Suffolk Garland gathers the best writing, new and old, from people who love this special county. Everything about Suffolk is unexpected. For centuries it has been a much-loved place for writers, artists, musicians, fishermen, farmers ... A New Suffolk Garland gathers the best writing, new and old, from people who love this special county: from a twelfth-century monk to Ed Sheeran, through Gainsborough, Dickens, W.G. Sebald, Ronald Blythe, Robert MacFarlane, Michael Ondaatje and Penelope Fitzgerald to Roger Deakin, Melissa Harrison and Helen Macdonald. The anthology contains specially written new work by Craig Brown, Ralph Fiennes, India Knight, Olivia Laing, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Robin Robertson and Lucy Walker. From the art of hedge-laying to the undiscovered treasures of Suffolk's churches, from the Suffolk punch stable to Delia Smith's kitchen table, from swimming with otters in the River Waveney to the golden aurioles of Lakenheath, this new collection encapsulates all that is best about Suffolk.

Winner of the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, The Milk Hours is an elegant debut that searches widely to ask what it means to exist in a state of loss. "We lived overlooking the walls overlooking the cemetery." So begins the title poem of this collection, whose recursive temporality is filled with living, grieving things, punctuated by an unseen world of roots, bodies, and concealed histories. Like a cemetery, too, The Milk Hours sets unlikely neighbors alongside each other: Hegel and Murakami, Melville and the Persian astronomer al-Sufi, enacting a transhistorical poetics even as it brims with intimacy. These are poems of frequent swerves and transformations, which never stray far from an engagement with science, geography, art, and aesthetics, nor from the dream logic that motivates their incessant investigations. Indeed, while John James begins with the biographical-the haunting loss of a father in childhood, the exhausted hours of early fatherhood-the questions that emerge from his poetic synthesis are both timely and universal: what is it to be human in an era where nature and culture have fused? To live in a time of political and environmental upheaval, of both personal and public loss? How do we make meaning, and to whom-or what-do we turn, when such boundaries so radically collapse?

John James Audubon was an American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. The Birds of America contains 435 life-size watercolours of North American birds, some of which reproduced here in our QuickNotes notecard set. 20 notecards and envelopes, 5 each of 4 images. Packaged in a sleek, sturdy flip-top box with magnetic closure. Cards printed on coated paper stock to bring out their full colour. Cards and envelopes bundled together with a paper belly band inside each box. Box measurements 143 x 120 x 34mm.

In poems as tautly constructed as they are trenchantly observed, Winter, Glossolalia probes the nature of language to depict the world from which it springs. Paired with humorous, often satirical images, this collection explores human ingenuity and creativity against the material resources of the given world, highlighting the possibilities and the limits of artistic making. In that sense, it is both a timely and enduring book, one that recalls Virgil’s Georgics as readily as it evokes the crisis of anthropogenic climate change.

This stunning edition of one of the most celebrated and highly valued natural history books of all time features impeccably reproduced images of Audubon's original watercolors, along with an introduction by world-renowned ornithologist David Allen Sibley. First published in installments between 1827 and 1838, John James Audubon's collection of life-sized watercolors of North American birds is the standard against which all wildlife illustration is measured. Fewer than 120 copies survive today, locked away in museums and private collections around the world. For this volume, the Natural History Museum in London disbound one of the two original editions it owns, and each of the 435 exquisite hand-colored prints of the original watercolours were photographed using the latest digital scanning technology. From an avocet grazing in a tidal pond to a zenaida dove perched on a flowering branch, each of Audubon's subjects is depicted with the grace and beauty of a living bird in its natural habitat. An avid outdoorsman and explorer, Audubon traveled from Florida to Labrador to Texas and the Dakotas to study and collect his specimens. Straddling the line between science and art, this book mesmerized 19th-century audiences around the world; today it stands as a reminder of the spectacular biodiversity of the North American continent, and of the pioneer spirit that Audubon himself revered.

This survey, and fascinating history, of the public green spaces of London was published in 1898. Its author, John J. Sexby, the Chief Officer of Parks of the London County Council, is described as a lieutenant-colonel and a professional associate of the Surveyors' Institution, from which it can be deduced that he probably worked as a surveyor in the army. His skills as a horticulturalist and garden designer cannot be doubted, and he left his mark on many of the municipal parks and gardens about which he writes with such enthusiasm. Sexby focuses on the municipal parks (those maintained by local authorities) rather than the nationally managed parks in central London. He describes large open spaces such as Hampstead Heath as well as small, disused churchyards like that of St Dunstan's in Stepney, providing details of their former owners and use as well as their present condition.

Nathaniel Pearce (1779-1820) was, according to J. J. Halls, who edited and published his autobiographical writings in 1831, 'one of those remarkable and adventurous beings, whom Nature ... seems to take delight in creating'. Having run away to sea twice, deserted from the navy, accidentally killed a man, and briefly converted to Islam, he came into his own as a guide and factotum to British travellers in Egypt. He accompanied Henry Salt's 1805 mission to Abyssinia, where he married a local girl and served the ruler of Tigre until the latter's death in 1816. Pearce's humorous account of his life is particularly interesting in the details it gives of the land and people of Ethiopia, then little known by Europeans. Volume 1 begins the narrative of Pearce's life and his African travels and also contains an account of an expedition to the city of Gondar by his friend William Coffin.

Nathaniel Pearce (1779-1820) was, according to J. J. Halls, who edited and published his autobiographical writings in 1831, 'one of those remarkable and adventurous beings, whom Nature ... seems to take delight in creating'. Having run away to sea twice, deserted from the navy, accidentally killed a man, and briefly converted to Islam, he came into his own as a guide and factotum to British travellers in Egypt. He accompanied Henry Salt's 1805 mission to Abyssinia, where he married a local girl and served the ruler of Tigre until the latter's death in 1816. Pearce's humorous account of his life is particularly interesting in the details it gives of the land and people of Ethiopia, then little known by Europeans. In Volume 2, the situation in Abyssinia becomes dangerous and Pearce decides to escape down the Nile. The journal ends abruptly in 1819, a year before his death.

The traveller and antiquary Henry Salt (1780-1827) hoped to become a portrait painter, but recognised his own limitations, and instead entered the employment of Viscount Valentia, embarking with him on an eastern tour in 1802. In 1805, Valentia sent him on a mission to improve relations with the rulers of Abyssinia. After a second expedition, this time on behalf of the British government, in which he made observations and collections of the local flora and fauna, he was appointed consul-general to Egypt, and in his spare time carried out excavations at Thebes and Abu Simbel. This two-volume work was published in 1834 by Salt's close friend, the painter J. J. Halls (1776-1853). Volume 1 tells the story of Salt's early life and his career up to the famous removal of the colossal statue of Ramesses II ('Ozymandias') from Thebes to the British Museum in 1816.

The traveller and antiquary Henry Salt (1780-1827) hoped to become a portrait painter, but recognised his own limitations, and instead entered the employment of Viscount Valentia, embarking with him on an eastern tour in 1802. In 1805, Valentia sent him on a mission to improve relations with the rulers of Abyssinia. After a second expedition, this time on behalf of the British government, in which he made observations and collections of the local flora and fauna, he was appointed consul-general to Egypt, and in his spare time carried out excavations at Thebes and Abu Simbel. This two-volume work was published in 1834 by Salt's close friend, the painter J. J. Halls (1776-1853). Volume 2 describes Salt's later career in Egypt, as a diplomat and especially as a pioneering archaeologist, as well as his negotiations over the future of his own spectacular collection of Egyptian artefacts.

This book was first published in 2007, a time of enormous change in the field of optical spectrometry. Although the basic optical principles remained unchanged, the design considerations were very different and, in many cases, more demanding. Developments in computer ray-tracing and computer-aided design coped with the extra impositions and allowed the construction of a new generation of spectrographs. The book covers the general principles of spectrographic design at the time, and the practical and engineering aspects of a broad range of spectrographs and spectrometers. The book deals with materials and methods of construction and includes suggestions for the choice of optical table, the design of slit mechanisms, and adjustable mirror, grating and lens mounts, with suggestions for the alignment and calibration of the finished instrument.

Daniel Patterson and Eric Russell present a groundbreaking case for considering John James Audubon's and John Bachman's quadruped essays as worthy of literary analysis and redefine the role of Bachman, the perpetually overlooked coauthor of the essays. After completing The Birds of America (1826-38), Audubon began developing his work on the mammals. The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America volumes show an antebellum view of nature as fundamentally dynamic and simultaneously grotesque and awe-inspiring. The quadruped essays are rich with good stories about these mammals and the humans who observe, pursue, and admire them. For help with the science and the essays, Audubon enlisted the Reverend John Bachman of Charleston, South Carolina. While he has been acknowledged as coauthor of the essays, Bachman has received little attention as an American nature writer. While almost all works that describe the history of American nature writing include Audubon, Bachman shows up only in a subordinate clause or two. Tenacious of Life strives to restore Bachman's status as an important American nature writer. Patterson and Russell analyze the coauthorial dance between the voices of Audubon, an experienced naturalist telling adventurous hunting stories tinged often by sentiment, romanticism, and bombast, and of Bachman, the courteous gentleman naturalist, scientific detective, moralist, sometimes cruel experimenter, and humorist. Drawing on all the primary and secondary evidence, Patterson and Russell tell the story of the coauthors' fascinating, conflicted relationship. This collection offers windows onto the early United States and much forgotten lore, often in the form of travel writing, natural history, and unique anecdotes, all told in the compelling voices of Antebellum America's two leading naturalists.

Every week between Easter and November, some 200 funfairs open in cities and towns across every part of the UK. Over 4500 travelling showmen and their families run them, a community deeply rooted in historical tradition and strong family values. "Fairground Attraction" has the intimacy of a family album. Through formal portraits and candid observation we meet showmen not only at work but also away from their brash, public arena in the private spaces of their living trailers and winter-quarters and during their family celebrations.