History of British Birds (1843)

A History of British Birds

Title page of first edition
Author	William Yarrell
Illustrator	Alexander Fussell (drawing) John Thompson (engraving)
Country	England
Subject	Birds
Genre	Natural history
Publisher	John Van Voorst, Paternoster Row, London
Publication date	1843
Pages	3 vols (525, 669, 528 pp.)

William Yarrell's A History of British Birds was first published as a whole in three volumes in 1843, having been serialized, three sheets every two months, over the previous six years. It is not a history of ornithology but a natural history, a handbook or field guide systematically describing every species of bird known to occur in Britain. A separate article of about six pages, containing an image, a description, and an account of worldwide distribution, together with reports of behaviour, is provided for each species.

It quickly became the standard reference work for a generation of British ornithologists, replacing Thomas Bewick's book of the same name through its increased scientific accuracy, but following Bewick in its mixture of scientific data, accurate illustrations, detailed descriptions and varied anecdotes, as well as in the use of small 'tail-piece' engravings at the ends of articles. This made the book attractive to the public as well as to specialists. Yarrell, a newsagent without university education, corresponded widely with eminent naturalists including Carl Linnaeus, Coenraad Jacob Temminck and Thomas Pennant to collect accurate information on the hundreds of species illustrated in the work.

The book is illustrated with over 500 drawings directly onto wood blocks, mostly by Alexander Fussell. These were then engraved by John Thompson. Publication was initially in 37 parts of three large folded sheets each; these were then collected and bound into volumes. Most of the copies were on octavo paper; some "large paper" format copies were printed in the larger royal octavo with just 50 copies in the very large imperial octavo format. Four editions were produced between 1843 and 1885.

Yarrell was aware of earlier bird handbooks, especially Bewick's. A History of British Birds used the same title as Bewick's popular book (1797–1804). Its approach, however, was significantly different in the extensiveness of Yarrell's correspondence and in the increased emphasis on scientific accuracy made possible by the rapid advance in ornithological knowledge in the nineteenth century.