Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick
By (Author) Jenny Uglow
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
1st November 2007
6th September 2007
Main
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Individual artists, art monographs
Prints and printmaking
Nature in art
769.92
Paperback
496
Width 130mm, Height 195mm, Spine 35mm
580g
At the end of the 18th century, Britain fell in love with nature. Thomas Bewick's History of British Birds marked the moment, the first 'field-guide' for ordinary people, illustrated by woodcuts of astonishing accuracy and beauty. But it was far more than that, for in the vivid vignettes scattered through the book Bewick drew the vanishing way of life of the country people of the North East.
In this superbly illustrated biography, Jenny Uglow tells a story of violent change, radical politics, lost ways of life and the beauty of the wild - a journey to the beginning of our last obsession with the natural world.
Jenny Uglow grew up in Cumbria and now works in publishing. Her books include prize-winning biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell and William Hogarth. The Lunar Men, published in 2002, was described by Richard Holmes as 'an extraordinarily gripping account', while Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick, won the National Arts Writers Award for 2007 and A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration was shortlisted for the 2010 Samuel Johnson Prize. Her most recent book In These Times, a comprehensive history of the home front during the Napoleonic Wars, was described as 'a remarkable book written by an award-winning historian at the peak of her powers'. She lives in Canterbury.