In the 1970s the relationship between literature and the environment emerged as a topic of serious and widespread interest among writers and scholars. The ideas, debates, and texts that grew out of this period subsequently converged and consolidated into the field now known as ecocriticism. A Century of Early Ecocriticism looks behind these recent developments to a prior generation's ecocritical inclinations. Written between 1864 and 1964, these thirty-four selections include scholars writing about the "green" aspects of literature as well as nature writers reflecting on the genre. In his introduction, David Mazel argues that these early "ecocritics" played a crucial role in both the development of environmentalism and the academic study of American literature and culture. Filled with provocative, still timely ideas, A Century of Early Ecocriticism demonstrates that our concern with the natural world has long informed our approach to literature.

William Carpenter (1813-85) was trained as a doctor; he was apprenticed to an eye surgeon, and later attended University College London and the University of Edinburgh, obtaining his M. D. in 1839. Rather than practising medicine, he became a teacher, specialising in neurology, and it was his work as a zoologist on marine invertebrates that brought him wide scientific recognition. His Principles of Mental Physiology, published in 1874, developed the ideas he had first expounded in the 1850s, and expounds the arguments for and against the two models of psychology then current - automatism, which assumed that the mind operates under the control of the physiology of the body for all human activity, and free will, 'an independent power, controlling and directing that activity.' Drawing on animal as well as human examples, his arguments, especially on the acquisition of mental traits in the individual, are much influenced by Darwin.

British palaeontologist Thomas Davidson (1817-85) was born in Edinburgh and began his studies at the city's university. Encouraged by German palaeontologist Leopold von Buch, he began to study brachiopod fossils at the age of twenty, and he quickly became the undisputed authority. He was elected fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1852, receiving the Wollaston medal in 1865. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1857. Published between 1850 and 1886, this six-volume work became the definitive reference text on the subject. It includes more than two hundred hand-drawn plates and a comprehensive bibliography. This volume, the fifth of six, is the second of two supplements providing corrections to earlier volumes and detailing species discovered since the original volumes were published. It also features a general summary as well as a catalogue and index of British brachiopod species.

British palaeontologist Thomas Davidson (1817-85) was born in Edinburgh and began his studies at the city's university. Encouraged by German palaeontologist Leopold von Buch, he began to study brachiopod fossils at the age of twenty, and he quickly became the undisputed authority. He was elected fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1852, receiving the Wollaston medal in 1865. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1857. Published between 1850 and 1886, this six-volume work became the definitive reference text on the subject. It includes more than two hundred hand-drawn plates and a comprehensive bibliography. This volume, the first of six, includes an essay on the terebratulids by Richard Owen, an analysis of brachiopod shell structure by W. B. Carpenter and a guide to classification by Davidson himself. The rest of the volume describes Cretaceous, Tertiary, Oolitic and Liasic brachiopod species.