Author:
Gilbert White (1720-1793), naturalist and ornithologist, author of the celebrated 'Natural History of Selborne' (1789) [Thomas Bell (1792-1880), zoologist]
A very nice artefact of one of the best-loved books in the England language, Gilbert White's 'Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne', which at one point was claimed to be the fourth most-printed book after the Bible, Shakespeare, and Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress'. White's entry in the Oxford DNB concludes by describing the book as 'an expression of universal thanksgiving, treasured by all'. The present item is the original manuscript of what White's editor Thomas Bell describes as 'Gilbert White's statement' on the venomous properties of the toad, first printed in a footnote (signed 'T.