The New Naturalist library is probably the most avidly collected series of natural history books in English, as the high asking prices for the scarcer ones indicate only too well. The library has most if not all of the ingredients of collectability. The books are well produced in uniform format. They have strikingly attractive dust jackets designed by important artists. They were, collectively and often individually, what Crispin Fisher once described as ‘landmarks in contemporary study’. While there are enough of them to go round, they are just scarce enough to engage the hunting instinct, making the assembly of a complete collection difficult but attainable. Last, and probably least in collecting terms, most of the titles are still a good read. All they lack is the bloom of antiquity to achieve the book collector’s dream tout court.
Most New Naturalist collectors are, I would guess, naturalists themselves – at least those I know all are. The series has more appeal to the naturalist who likes books than the book-lover who likes nature. I feel on less certain ground in suggesting that their greatest appeal is to a particular generation, that is, those of us who grew up with these books from the 1940s through to the mid-1970s. There are probably not a few people with jobs in the biological sciences or nature conservation who could claim that the New Naturalist library changed their lives. As an A-level biology student, Butterflies was my favourite book, though I never became very interested in genetics; as an undergraduate I knew chunks of J.E. Lousley’s Wild Flowers of Chalk and Limestone almost by heart and used it to plan field trips; it was Mountain Flowers that led me to the botanical wonders of Ben Lawers and Caenlochan and fostered an interest in biogeography. I took pleasure and pride as the late Nature Conservancy Council’s conservation person in Aberdeenshire in my custodianship of most of Chapter Six! New Naturalist titles appear regularly as top ten choices in the ‘natural classic’ guest column in BBC Wildlife. Among the recent ones have been The Badger, The Open Sea, British Amphibians and Reptiles (twice) and The Sea Shore. Unless we were abnormally precocious or unusually wealthy, the New Naturalists were probably not our first natural history books, but from teenage onwards they probably took the lead in terms of opening our eyes to ecology and what Fraser Darling called the ‘wholeness of nature’. In those days good bookshops would stock 30 or 40 titles, often side by side on the same gleaming shelf. During the past 20 years they have been less forcefully brought to our attention and there is now, one must suppose, a new generation of naturalists to whom this series is not the seminal influence that it was. Even the word naturalist seems to have gone out of fashion. We are the old or middle-aged naturalists now. The new generation are ‘environmentalists’, ‘conservationists’ or merely ‘green’. Plus ca change.
Well-preserved copies of the older New Naturalist titles are already part of the Rare and Fine Books market, though few of them are in fact rare. Shop-fresh second-hand copies are still surprisingly plentiful but are always in demand. Grubby, worn or jacketless copies, on the other hand, will continue to repine on the booksellers’ shelves as they do today, until someone takes pity and offers a pound or two to take them away. That is in the nature of the game, of course, but it is particularly the case with this series. The reason is clear: one torn or stained copy can ruin the appearance of the entire shelf. You will never be happy with it. Ten years ago, I thought I was above all that, and that my collection was for use not ostentation, as Gibbon once said of the harem of a Roman emperor. Today, though, I notice that those now threadbare books I bought in my teens have all been replaced. But this obsession with condition is purely a matter of personal taste. As the author of Modern First Editions, Joseph Connolly put it, if condition truly isn’t important to you, then quite simply it isn’t important. And you will be able to knock together a set of New Naturalist ‘greenbacks’ in no time at all and blow the savings on a month in the West Indies.
New Naturalist books are well made and relatively hard wearing. You rarely find the pages sagging from their bindings, or boards that are split and falling away from the spines, or plates falling out. It is also clear that in so many cases these books have been looked after. Modern first editions from the 1940s and 1950s in well-preserved dust jackets are usually scarce, but that is not the case with the New Naturalist library. Moreover, you sometimes come across 30-year-old copies in truly remarkable condition, as fresh as the day they were bought. I have a copy of Weeds and Aliens that shows no sign of ever having been opened, let alone read. Its brilliant colours suggest that it was not kept on open book shelves either, nor in a box in some damp garage. Where has it been all this time? The snag with pristine copies like this, of course, is that the book is a bit too good: I don’t like to use it either, and, since I’m rather fond of Weeds and Aliens, I suppose I’m in the market for a more dog-eared copy that I can take into the fields and woods and press flowers in. Collecting is a form of madness, I agree.
One reason why New Naturalists tend to be better preserved than some of their contemporaries is that they were not intended for use as field identification guides, so many of them escaped the horrors of the rucksack or the oven-like heat of the car back-seat. Nor were they in general bought for young children to decorate with crayons and sticky substances. I have the sneaking suspicion that a few people having bought them found them too difficult, and so back they went on the top shelf, permanently (this, of course, applies to some titles more than others. Old copies of The Sea Shore and Wild Flowers of Chalk and Limestone are always well used). Some books may not be as old as they seem. When you find that miraculously well-preserved copy of British Game or The Redstart, be wary of jumping to conclusions about its age. True, the stated printing date is 1946 and 1950 respectively, but these titles, and several others, were cut and bound up according to demand, and there is evidence that printed quires and wrappers were lying around in the vast Collins printing factory well into the 1960s. You can find jackets of The Yellow Wagtail which were printed in the late 1960s (as proven by the advertisements they carry), though the rest of the book was printed nearly 20 years earlier. Today, this seems an odd way of going about things, a combination of thrift and optimism very much at odds with the present-day book publishing scene.
The green buckram casing of the New Naturalist books has in general withstood the test of time, as have the cotton bindings. The cloth does not stand up well to prolonged sunbathing, however, and jacketless copies of the older books are often faded. The most vulnerable part of the binding, the gilt lettering stamped on the spine, can fade away altogether (or, mysteriously, certain letters fade and others don’t). According to Ron Freethy, the New Naturalist board discussed the latter point at length after a reviewer had drawn attention to it, but there was evidently nothing to be done about it.
The most easily damaged part of the book is, of course, the dust jacket. Some people evidently threw away the jackets after purchase (E.B. Ford seems to have been one of them – see p. 93), a practice much more common a couple of generations ago than today. New Naturalist jackets were from the start intended to be an important part of the book’s design, so much so that Dudley Stamp once suggested they be printed as a frontispiece on the American editions. They were printed on thick paper suitable for lithography, and hence are fairly resistant to chipping and tearing. But they are prone, as every collector knows, to fading, browning and spotting, and not being laminated, soot and grime seems to stick to them. Rust spots and toned paper are to some extent defects of age. It is unreasonable to expect a book to remain as fresh 50 years on than as it was on the day it was sold. Nevertheless, if one could plot the ratio of well-preserved copies against time, I believe it would be not a straight line but a curve. It is much more difficult to find pristine jackets on books printed before 1960 than after 1970, more so than the difference of ten years would explain. One obvious reason is that most New Naturalist dust jackets – reprints as well as new ones – were between 1972 and 1985 sealed inside plastic ‘duraseal’ wrappers to prolong their life in the shop. Mint copies of any title published after 1972 are therefore easy to find. I suspect that another reason is that, while most houses today are centrally heated at a fairly constant temperature, those in the 1940s and 1950s were usually heated by coal fires or rather inefficient electric fires and radiators. Books would be subjected to cold and damp to a greater degree than today, especially if they were kept in a library or some other room not in regular use. Prolonged exposure to cold, damp conditions result in the book equivalent of pneumonia, the unsightly yellow-brown blotches known as ‘damp-stains’. Conversely heat and drying, as for example when the book is shelved too close to a radiator, are said to be responsible for the condition known as ‘foxing’ in which the jacket, endpapers and page edges develop a rash of red-brown freckles. A certain degree of foxing seems almost inevitable with the older books, and it shows up more obviously on the paler-coloured jackets. It is hard to find a jacket of the 1949 Snowdonia, for example, without a few blotches and spots. A small amount of foxing does not detract unduly from the book’s collectability (though it should, of course, reduce the price), but damp-staining is a serious minus, since it means that the paper has started to rot. Books stored for long periods in damp conditions also start to smell unpleasantly. This, I think, is particularly unfortunate with this series since the pages of fresh copies have a distinctive and rather pleasant smell, with a touch of vanilla in it, rather like hay drying in the sun. Not the most recent titles though, which assault the nasal senses with the power of plastic melting in battery acid.
The most common jacket defects are fading and browning, both of which are caused by sunlight. The inks used to print the jackets are also notoriously prone to fading, especially the red pigment, which can disappear altogether, and to a lesser extent the green, which tends to turn blue. Those with red-based colours, like The Badger, The World of Spiders or The Hawfinch, are often faded on the spine. Equally sensitive are jackets like Britain’s Structure and Scenery, Butterflies, The Fulmar and British Mammals, where sunburn gradually turns the whites and pale greys to an unlovely sepia. There may be copies of The Fulmar in which the bird on the spine is still lily-white and not the colour of coffee, but I have not seen any (but I have seen the proof of the jacket and can confirm that when new the bird was as white as snow). In terms of fading, the worst of the lot may be the orange jacket of The World of the Honeybee which, indeed, behaves very much like honey, turning an unpleasant opaque shade of yellow if you leave it standing in the sun.
Most collectors do not like inscriptions of any kind unless they are by the author himself, or someone closely associated with that particular book – say one of the photographers, or a person acknowledged in print by the author. The book should resemble the condition in which it was bought new as closely as possible. There seems to be an unwritten rule that the more interesting the inscription, the more disgusting the condition of the book, or at least that is my experience. It is not at all unusual to find signed copies of some of the later titles, the reason being that at least one enterprising bookseller arranged to have his order author-signed (I wonder more sellers haven’t thought of it). On the other hand, a Butterflies signed by E.B. Ford, or an Insect Natural History by A.D. Imms would have rarity value indeed, though it might not affect the price much.
The degree of defectiveness that one is willing to tolerate is entirely a personal matter, though there are titles like The Fulmar where mint, unblemished copies may simply not exist. Some collectors insist on Fine copies of the more recent titles, but for the sake of pragmatism will accept minor tears and spotting on earlier first editions. A few, however, are very, very choosy. Dr Tim Oldham, a natural history bookseller, recalled one couple who would prowl book fairs all over the country in search of the perfect copy. ‘Madam would sit whilst her husband ran around bringing her examples from various dealers, and these would be carefully examined. They developed their own terminology over the years especially for these books, and the affair took on the air of a courtship ritual. Alas, they have now completed their collection which I hear is housed behind locked glass in a dark room with the spines turned inward.’ (Perhaps one should forebear to mention that keeping books behind glass is not a good idea – they grow breathless, and start to smell of drains.)
I list the complete printing history of each title, as far as I am able, in Appendix 2. The revisions that went into each new edition were usually quite minor because Collins could not afford to reset the text each time. In some cases a replacement section was added, often in smaller print, such as the chapter on insect flight in the later editions of Insect Natural History. Sometimes there were a few less, or a few different, plates but the difference would be barely discernible. The most significant exceptions were the books that were revised for the Fontana paperbacks in the 1960s and then used as the basis for a new hardback edition, at some loss of printing quality.
The text apart, there are two technological changes that the New Naturalist collector should be aware of. The first was the change-over in half-tone printing from gravure (i.e. printed on engraved rotary cylinders) to letterpress (i.e. printed on blocks) around 1960. The half-tones in the older books have a ‘period’ feel, like contemporary magazine illustrations, while the letterpress plates, printed on glossier paper, have a much more up-to-date look. The changeover was made for reasons of economy; letterpress blocks last longer, and are cheaper to make, than engraved cylinders. The plates survived the change quite well, gaining in contrast while losing a little sharpness here and there.
Table 11. Commonly encountered defects of second-hand New Naturalists in roughly descending order of undesirability and a few compensating merits
| Cloth cover dented or bumped (I hope you sued the Post Office). |
| Owner’s neat inscription or modest bookplate. |
| Owner’s hideous inscription or stamp, or ‘happy birthday young Timmy from Auntie Moggs and leave the bugs outside next time etc. etc.”, all in purple ink. |
| Jacket chipped but not torn. |
| Jacket stuck inside adhesive film, under which the inks have started to sweat. |
| A few tears, the odd chunk missing, spine faded, edges and endpapers sunned and other signs of a busy life opposite a south-facing window. |
| Torn jacket crudely repaired with sellotape which has discoloured, curled up and died, leaving a dirty yellow reminder to invest in some proper cloth tape next time. |
| Jacket and edges dirty or badly foxed, pages have lost their original crispness and grown limp, like fortnight-old lettuce. |
| Jacket damp-stained and discoloured, evidently kept on the window sill, then in the cellar. |
| Jacket evidently chewed by children or pets, cloth badly faded, gilt lettering nearly gone. |
| Book has obviously spent some time in the toaster, browned, spotted and lustreless. |
| Ex-library copy. The jacket may be passable but inside limp, toned pages, rubber stamps, dog-eared corners and, Good God, I hope that’s jam. |
| You surely don’t want to descend any further? |
| Desirable attributes |
| A nice neat signature by the author. |
| Very desirable attributes |
| A nice neat ditto, but addressed to a person mentioned in acknowledgements – known as an ‘association copy’. |
| Dreamable attributes |
| ‘To my old friend Billy Collins with thanks for everything from James Fisher.’ |
| The author’s own copy, in fabulous condition and full of small, neat marginal notes in pencil. |
| NB: The last two may not exist. |
Changes in technology also produced visible changes in print quality. Until about 1977, the text was printed by letterpress using the beautiful Baskerville lettering pioneered by Collins in the 1930s. The first book to be printed by the modern method of film-set was Inheritance (1977), while all titles since The Natural History of Orkney (1985) have used a new, smaller typeface set by contractors using desk-top methods. Some of the titles reprinted in the 1970s were printed by off-set lithography instead of letterpress, and, again, the loss of quality shows in the lettering. However much we regret the changes, without the advent of less labour-intensive ways of printing books it is very unlikely that the series would have survived at all. The changes in jacket production from letterpress to off-set lithography have been discussed in Chapter 4. The difference is apparent when you compare the two. Jackets printed by letterpress are on thicker, creamier paper, the colours are softer and more clearly differentiated. Offset litho, coupled with the use of more transparent pre-mixed inks, gives a ‘harder’ finish, the colours are deeper and the overall effect is slightly flatter. I have the impression that the offset litho jackets wear better than the letterpress ones, probably because with the former the inks used were pre-mixed and react less to light. The difference between the two sets of jackets is rather similar to that between a limited print and a mass-produced colour reproduction. The forcefulness of the design does not suffer, but there is some loss of printing quality.
Acquiring a collection of New Naturalist books is a mercifully straightforward business, unencumbered by the special boxed presentation copies of editions de luxe on handmade paper. No one seems much interested in the Book Club or American editions, nor the paperbacks. The Bloomsbury reprints are handy for filling the gaps on the shelf, but no true New Naturalist collector will touch them. A straightforward collection of the hardback titles in the best condition the purchaser can afford is the almost universal aim. Some collectors stopped at a particular point – often at No. 50 (1967) or No. 70 (1985). Today, the monographs are at least as sought after as the main titles, though 20 years ago booksellers had to practically give them away. The New Naturalist journal is worthy of honorary NN status, or would be if it matched the other books better. And many regard New Naturalist No. 6 as two separate books, The Highlands and Islands being a substantially rewritten version of its predecessor Natural History in the Highlands and Islands with reduced colour plates.
To judge from book fairs and booksellers catalogues, by far the most desirable New Naturalists are first editions. There is not, however, the enormous disparity in price between first editions and later ones that you find in other parts of the book market. I would say that, on average, the first edition is worth about 33% more than a reprint, or perhaps as much as 50% for some of the scarcer or more recent books like Weeds and Aliens or Man and Birds. First editions of early titles like Butterflies and Britain’s Structure and Scenery are difficult to find in fresh condition, even though 20,000 of each were printed. From the point of view of sheer usefulness, one might have considered that the later editions would be more in demand, especially the minority of titles that were revised substantially like Life in Lakes and Rivers and A Natural History of Man in Britain. Unfortunately production standards were slipping by the late 1970s and in some of the latest reprints the number of colour plates were drastically pruned or, in one notorious case (Butterflies), omitted altogether. Which is preferable, the 1977 Dartmoor with an updated chapter but less than half the original colour plates, or the badly out-of-date 1953 first edition? Much will depend on what you are buying the book for. If, however, you hope one day to sell the collection at considerably more than you paid for it, you would be wise to stick to first editions in Fine condition. Protect the jackets in cellophane, store the books on open shelves behind a dark curtain and let no one near them. Which, I think, would be a shame.
A word of warning about dust jackets. As the books become more expensive, fraudulent jackets are appearing on the market. There are two main types. One is the colour-photocopied dust jacket, until recently easy to spot as a crude travesty of the real thing. But modern laser-guided copying techniques produce a much more accurate reproduction of the original jacket. They still look suspicious, however: the paper will probably be chalk white without that subtle patina of age that even the best preserved genuine jackets tend to have. But the latter can be easy to miss when the fake jacket is clad in cellophane. The other fraudulent practice is to wrap a jacketless first edition in a later dust jacket. It is usually obvious when this has happened, since the titles listed on the back will not correspond with the date of the book. These things are sent to try us. In my experience they are still quite rare, and no reputable bookseller would dream of doing such things (though they are sometimes caught out by it themselves). But bear it in mind at that car boot sale or bargain mail order.
Where do you find old New Naturalists for sale? Many second-hand bookshops will stock at least a few, and the better ones may have a shelf-full or more. The more there are, the more expensive they are likely to be. Here you will find British Games, London Natural Histories and Sea Shores a-plenty in varying states of hygiene. A second source is booksellers catalogues. A few years ago, many booksellers specialising in natural history, gardening or country sports used to offer a good range of titles. Though some still do, I have the feeling that the supply may be drying up. The reason is that collectable copies are fetching higher prices, and in this spiral of buying and selling the bookseller has to pass this on to his or her customers. I know of two or three booksellers who no longer stock many New Naturalist titles because the price of the latter has grown too high for their particular market. This trend becomes worse when the books have been purchased by a middle man so that there might be two lots of 25% to 33% profit margins to pass onto the customer. In these circumstances, the New Naturalist market may be moving out of the province of people who actually use the books to the book connoisseur who is willing to pay much higher prices for them. One should not overstate this trend, however. While one might have to pay £100 plus for Fine copies of the scarcest titles, most of them are still available for £30 or less, especially if you take your time. In other words, many out-of-print titles are still available for no more than the price of the recent hardbacks (considerably less in some cases). One hears stories of someone buying The Fulmar or British Warblers for £300. The stories may be true, but whoever it was was wasting his money and setting a bad example.
The best way of all to find New Naturalists in plenty is to attend one or more of the PBFA (Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association) book fairs held regularly in central London and market towns across the country. One can find details of these in the magazine Book and Magazine Collector (whose advertisements are another source of New Naturalists, though not usually a very productive one). The best venue for that rare title you are searching for is the natural history book fair held at Kew Gardens each September. In 1992, I saw nearly all the New Naturalist titles there, often in superb condition and (in some cases) at reasonable prices. There used to be several booksellers who carted a complete set around from fair to fair, but at the time of writing they seem to have gone to ground. Still, the second-hand book world is an ever-changing kaleidoscope of tiny businesses, and doubtless we shall see more complete sets gleaming on their special shelves at collecting-idiots only prices.
Which are the rarest hardback titles? That is easy; there are two:– The Natural History of Orkney and British Warblers. Both were published in 1985 at the time when the series was switching from casebound to paperback production, and only 725 copies of each were printed in hardback for libraries and ‘the collectors’ (see Chapter 10). By the time the publishers realised that they had grievously underestimated the market, it was too late to print more. Some 500 paperbacks of each title were stripped and rebound as hardbacks, but since these were slightly smaller in size and have other minor differences, no one seemed to want them. To make matters worse, there was some crafty speculation in British Warblers, and many people missed their chance of buying one. It is still not too difficult to find mint copies of the ‘first edition, first state’ but the asking prices are always well in excess of £100. The rebound copies of ‘first edition, second state’ are on offer at about half that. Not surprisingly then, this is the commonest gap on the shelves.
Modern book collecting is a mad looking-glass world in which the least successful titles become the most sought after. How we sigh now for A Country Parish, the first main series title to go out of print (undeservedly, for it is an attractively written and beautifully illustrated book). Particular titles seem to swing in and out of fashion. Twenty years ago, the most sought-after title was Sea-Birds, and that book has actually fallen in price since then. Ten years ago, it was Dragonflies, following a sudden burst of enthusiasm for these insects reflected in the founding of a British Dragonfly Society. Today, it might be the monographs, sought by people who have completed their main series titles and don’t want to stop there.
One title that is always sought after and expensive despite a fairly long and successful life in the shops is The Art of Botanical Illustration. This is one of the few that sells readily without a jacket. The reason is the demand from the art and gardening market for this classic textbook, both here and in the United States. It will be interesting to see if the recent publication of a new enlarged edition of ‘The Art of’ reduces the demand for the original. This book also scores very highly in terms of beauty and readability. For the same reason, The World of Spiders and The Open Sea books are always in great demand, and command higher prices than one might otherwise have expected. Certain others like Weeds and Aliens and The Pollination of Flowers, are standard works on their subject, so that demand for them is continuous and by no means confined to collectors.
I have noticed a marked upward trend in the prices of the New Naturalist titles published between 1972 and 1983, which probably reflects growing scarcity. The print-run of these books was much smaller on average than their predecessors, and all are now out of print. Even British Tits and British Thrushes, which were a book club choice and so were printed in large numbers, are not the common or garden birds they were a few years ago. I do not want to encourage speculation by picking out individual titles, but I would quietly suggest that if No. 67 Farming and Wildlife and No. 68 Mammals in the British Isles are still gaps on your shelves, do snap them up as soon as you can because their print-run was miserably small. My other ‘top tip’ would be to persevere with the series and buy each new title in hardback as they appear. The current print-run of 1,500 hardback copies guarantees that one day they will be one with A Country Parish and Pedigree: Words from Nature unless people lose interest altogether.
‘Look at a collection of New Naturalists in their beautiful dust wrappers!’ cries a bookseller of Tintern and Hay-on-Wye. ‘Sensual and alluring? – absolutely!’ ‘Touch the green buckram bindings, the top quality paper. Savour the visual and tactile sensations.’
One does enjoy a bit of enthusiasm. When I was writing The New Naturalists, the series was bought and collected mainly by natural-historians. Today that may still be true, but there is a growing market for the books by bibliophiles and book collectors. The fact that titles immediately double in value the moment they go out of print (which is soon enough) also means there is inevitably some speculation in the secondhand book trade. The demand for mint, shop-fresh copies of recent titles has resulted in a steeply declining graph for books in less gleaming condition. In particular, a faded spine will knock a significant lump off the price, and for some titles that could be upwards of a hundred pounds.
Collecting fashion has also swung in favour of first editions – a sure sign of the ascendancy of the book collector over the naturalist. This does not affect recent titles, which are nearly all de facto first editions, but it means that earlier books in the series may be worth twice as much (or more) than reprints in comparable condition. For the user, as opposed to the collector, the opposite is true – we should want the latest, not the earliest version. At least we will get them at, relatively speaking, a bargain price.
In 1995, the most expensive titles by far were the hardback British Warblers and Natural History of Orkney which, as we all know, were disastrously under-printed. What I completely failed to predict was the rise in price of even more recent titles, especially those from volumes 72 to 81 inclusive – Heathlands to Ladybirds. Only 1,500 or so hardbacks of each were printed at this time of high pessimism, and they all sold out within months. If you didn’t buy them right away, you missed the boat. The Hebrides, I remember, sold out so quickly that some unfortunates who had ordered it from their local bookshop went away empty-handed and, obviously, not rejoicing. Titles from No. 93 onwards were printed in hardback in slightly larger numbers – around 3,000 for the more recent ones – but even these tend to go out of stock within a year, and always within two years.
Unfortunately, as every collector will know, often to his cost, these now very pricey books have dust jackets printed in non-fast colours. It is hard to find a copy of Freshwater Fish whose strong red title band has not already faded on the spine to a duller shade of magenta or pink. Or a Wild and Garden Plants on whose paling yellow band the tiny title lettering has not virtually disappeared. Or a New Forest on which the tawny fallow buck has not faded to an unrealistic yellow, amid equally surreal blue tree-trunks. There is not, it would seem, a lot we can do about it unless we store the books in a darkened vault, though the colours will last much longer when kept well away from direct sunlight.
In the original edition of The New Naturalists I drew up a guide to the value of each book based on a system of stars. Slightly facetiously, and because this is not an exact science, I compared the cheapest category, a single star, with the price of a good but unostentatious bottle of wine, that is to say, about £10 to £15. Only the rarest and most sought-after books received four stars, which wasn’t categorised explicitly, but was certainly meant to mean upwards of £100. The trouble with this, or perhaps any other method of valuing, is that books do not have a fixed price (not even in shops, thanks to the collapse of the Net Book Agreement). It all depends on condition, and on the market. At auction, including online sites such as ebay, a book is worth whatever the highest bidder feels like paying for it. Every book has its day. Thirty years ago, the New Naturalist with the highest price tag (about £50) might have been Sea-Birds or A Country Parish. Ten years ago, Orkney and Warblers were the first titles to break the £500 tape, at least on a ‘good’ day. Today certain other titles are catching up, notably The Hebrides, with Freshwater Fishes, Ferns and Ladybirds not far behind. But it all depends on condition. A perfect Freshwater Fishes – and perfect for a book published in 1992 means really perfect, shop-fresh, unfaded, preferably unopened – might make £400, perhaps even more if you had two reckless and over-excited bidders. One with an even mildly sunned spine would be worth less than half that. Perfect copies, you see, are already rare, while slightly blemished ones relatively commonplace (commonplace, that is, in a fairly rare book). Butterflies, the first title in the series, is a common book, but a shop-fresh first edition in a like jacket would be about as rare as a gold tooth in the jaws of a duck. A really nice ‘first’ might set you back £50, even £75, while for another copy which has long lost the bloom of youth, you might pay £10. And a copy without a jacket would be the sort of book you pluck for a pound or two at a flea market or a market stall (‘tell you what, guv, three for £1.50’). So this revised star-guide does not represent absolute value but a sliding scale of values from mint (or as near to mint as age allows) to what is politely known as a reading copy. Today, first editions are worth up to twice the amount of a reprint. For the scarcest titles, of course, there is only one hardback edition. The New Naturalist ‘law of reversed success’ applies: the most sought-after titles today were the least sought-after at the time.
One star means that you should be able to find a perfectly nice copy for not much more than £10-15, a stunning one for perhaps £20-30. At the cheap end, technically ‘good’ copies are available for a fiver, and bad ones should be given away.
Two stars are a bit pricier, say £20-30 for a reprint, and up to £50 for a really tip-top first edition. There is a steep downward slide towards blemished copies which no one really wants, unless you are more interested in the contents of the book than in collecting it. It still happens.
A three star book is a bit elusive, and you’ll be lucky to find a nice one without paying a specialist’s high prices (though that happens too). We are probably looking at £50-£100 here. In other words three stars is worth a bit more in 2005 than it did in 1995. Time was when only three or four books in the whole series would have earned three stars, and we could have blown the rest on high living. Ho hum.
Four stars means that the book has become rare. Really rare. Join the queue to pay more, often much more, than £100. A row of titles in gleaming mint jackets from No. 69 to No. 82 – the unlucky 13 – taking up about fifteen inches of shelf space would now cost you – what? – £5,000? I don’t really want to think about it.
The following estimates are culled from recent book catalogues and online bookshops, ebay auctions and advice from Robert Burrow, who runs a bookshop and ‘The New Naturalist Book Club’ in Jersey. Thanks to Bob for all his help here.
Butterflies. A common title, but early ones are maddeningly difficult to find in fresh condition. They really used their books back in the 1940s. There are two forms of dust jacket: the first three editions were produced by letterpress but from the mid-1960s, they used a screen that turned white into a grubby shade of grey. Beware of the colourless 1977 edition. Rating: * + * for a first edition.
British Game. Printed in huge quantities and often surprisingly well preserved. That is because although the book was published in 1946, copies were being bound up from printed sheets long after that. I think this may be the commonest title in the series, which is odd because it is also probably one of the least read. Rating: *
London’s Natural History. Also quite common though usually showing its age. Look for the rare copy with clean edges, tight, springy binding and a clean little tufted duck at the bottom. Rating: *
Britain’s Structure and Scenery. The best seller of the series but surprisingly difficult to find a first edition without the usual spots and stains. From 1967 the colour plates were reduced from 48 to 32. From the mid-60s, the jackets were printed by offset lithography using a screen that gives a newsprint-like effect; the earlier ones were printed by letterpress with cleaner colours. Rating: * + * for a first edition.
Wild Flowers. The first of the dark jackets, effectively hiding spots, freckles, stains etc. Easy to find in Fine condition. Minor differences (including plates) between editions. Rating: *
Natural History of Highlands and Islands. Not uncommon and often well preserved. All are first editions. Worth buying for the colour plates. Rating: *
The Highlands and Islands. Though the jacket is the same as the preceding title, this is really a separate book. 1964 is the ‘first thus’. Plenty around still. Technically a better book than Natural History, though only 4 colour plates compared with 32. Rating: *
Mushrooms and Toadstools. One of the best New Naturalists, and plenty of them about, though a fresh first may be elusive. The jacket of the 1977 reprint was photographed, then litho-printed, a disgusting sight. Rating * + * for a first edition.
Insect Natural History. Still a common title, though early editions are usually sunned and/or frayed. The later ones in duraseal wrappers are invariably in near-Fine condition. The 1971 edition contained a new chapter on insect flight set in a smaller typeface. Rating: *
A Country Parish. A scarce book, out of print since 1959 and hard to find in VG, let alone Fine, condition. Jackets are usually foxed, and often sunned and stained. But 7,000 were printed, so there ought to be enough copies to go round. I wonder where they are. Rating: ****
British Plant Life. Plenty around in varying degrees of wear and tear. The first editions usually sport interesting collections of spots and stains. The jackets of later ones were printed in wishy-washy colours which reduces the effect of the design. Rating: *
Mountains and Moorlands. Plenty of these, too. The 1971 edition is partly rewritten by Winifred Pennington though the plates are the same. Rating: *
The Sea Shore. Another of the commoner titles, with an enormous first edition. The pink shells on the spine tend to fade, and a good bright first edition might be elusive. Rating: * + * for a first edition.
Snowdonia. With 18,000 printed, this is not a scarce title, but you might have to hunt for a tight, bright copy – this was a bulky book and strained its bindings; there always seems to be some foxing, which is allowable, and sometimes damp-staining as well, which is not. Two states exist, one with authors’ names on the spine of the book (but not the wrapper), the other without. The latter is probably earlier. Rating: **
The Art of a Botanical Illustration. Not scarce, but always in demand in almost any condition. At the moment though, it is decidedly *** in Very Good to Fine condition. Sun-tanned jackets abound, and it doesn’t suit them.
Life in Lakes and Rivers. A lot of updating to successive editions, especially the 1974 one, blown up from Fontana plates. Freshwater ecologists will want the later, book collectors the earlier, edition. Another common title. Rating: *
Wild Flowers of Chalk and Limestone. Always a popular title for use on botanical excursions and hence often sunned from lying on car seats. The first edition is difficult to find in Fine condition. Check the 1969 edition for loose pages. Rating: **
Birds and Men. Though long out of print, it was printed in large numbers and is still quite a common title. Look for a nice clean one, and inspect the reverse for grime. They are all first editions. Rating: * + * for a clean copy.
A Natural History of Man in Britain. The second edition (1970) was a substantial revision bringing in Margaret Davies as co-author. Nice second editions easy to find, fresh firsts scarcer. Rating: * (*)
Wild Orchids of Britain. A popular book, always in demand. The second (1968) edition has an updating introduction and a new set of distribution maps. Rating: **
British Amphibians and Reptiles. A much-revered herpetological classic, and attractively illustrated, so always in demand. The jacket spine is prone to fading. This book was continually updated through five editions. Rating: **, may be an extra star for a fine first.
British Mammals. Like other pale covers, this one quickly shows signs of wear, especially from sunning, and, like other big books in the series the binding may show signs of strain. Dated, but still a classic. Rating: * (*)
Climate and the British Scene. Quite easy to find, and attractive. The switch to off-set did not suit the jacket design. The post-1962 editions are often in collectable condition; not so the earlier ones. Rating: * (*)
An Angler’s Entomology. The printer made a dog’s breakfast of the later editions of this title, mixing letterpress and litho with heedless abandon. The first edition escaped that fate. Rating: **, with an extra star for a fine first.
Flowers of the Coast. Distinctly scarcer than most of its contemporaries and with a particularly spotting-prone title, so I will award it two stars ** + maybe an extra * for a Fine first edition.
The Sea Coast. Another middling title, not common, not rare. The Third Edition included a new appendix about the 1953 floods. Rating: **
The Weald. Only the first edition has the full set of excellent Goldring plates, the highlight of this rather dull book. Demand from residential field courses kept it in print. Rating: **
Dartmoor. Only the first edition has all the colour plates and the 1977 reprint had hardly any. It did, on the other hand, carry a new chapter by the author. Your choice. Rating: * + * for first a edition.
Sea-Birds. At one time the most sought-after book in the series, but rather less so now as it is deemed to be out of date. Not as rare as it is cracked up to be: 10,000 were printed, plus another 2,500 in the States. They are all first editions. The colour band on the spine tends to fade. Rating: ***
World of the Honeybee. The size shrank with successive editions and the latest one which lacks the original prefaces was Lilliputian. The orange jacket turns yellow like lightning, especially on the spine. Keep well out of the sun. Rating: * + * for a first edition.
Moths. This is one of the titles where first editions are offered at twice the price of reprints. The dark wrapper ages well. Minor differences over three editions. Rating: **
Man and the Land. Only the first edition has the full set of colour plates. Successively revised over three editions. ** for first.
Trees, Woods and Man. Only the first edition has the full set of colour plates. Their number had shrunk from 24 to 12 for the last (1978) one. The 1978 ed. had a new preface lamenting the loss of the elm. Rating: *
Mountain Flowers. Another popular botanical classic, in demand for excursions which might explain the scarcity of Fine copies (mine went with me to Loch Tay, where I spilt a cup of coffee over it). Rating: **
Open Sea. World of Plankton. Always in demand for its beauty and readability, and as a classic by a famous biologist. The print-run was larger than its companion Fish and Fisheries, but the latter was in print longer. So honours are about even at **, or £70 for a Fine first, reprints about half that.
The World of Soil. Dark cover, but with red in it so prone to fading. Still quite easy at * + * for a first edition.
Insect Migration. A limited print-run on a specialised subject, and becoming scarcer. Rating: **
Open Sea. Fish and Fisheries. Always in demand for Hardy’s watercolours and pleasant writing. Rating: **, as with World of Plankton.
The World of Spiders. A beautiful book, always in great demand. The title band on the jacket is hard to find unfaded, especially in the first edition. Rating **(*)
The Folklore of Birds. One of the scarcest titles in the series, on sale for only four years. On the other hand, those copies that do appear are often in excellent condition. Their price indicates that this is unfortunately a **** book.
Bumblebees. Also scarce, with a modest print-run. Like Honeybee, this title was published in slightly smaller format than the other titles: it seems they couldn’t decide whether this was a main series title or a monograph and so compromised. Now a rare book, £150+ for a Fine first, half that for the reprint. ***(*)
Dragonflies. A scarce and famous book, always in great demand by dragonfly enthusiasts. Often in nice condition when found, but I fear that the days when you could discover one at your local jumble sale are over. Rating: ****
Fossils. Not difficult, though the dark jacket tends to fade. The first edition was the same as Dragonflies and Bumblebees, and so must be quite scarce. The book is badly out of date. Rating: * + * for a first edition.
Weeds and Aliens. Another sought after title, out of print since 1972. The first edition fetches double the price of the small reprint, for some daft reason. Rating: ** (*)
The Peak District. Still fairly common, the small first edition commanding at least twice the price of later reprints. Rating: * (*)
The Common Lands of England and Wales. In printing terms, almost as scarce as Weeds and Aliens, but you would never know it from the price. Rating: ***, dock a star for the reprint.
The Broads. One of the more elusive titles in only one edition. The supposedly modish laminated jacket looks old fashioned now, and is often chipped and torn (and also cracked, like crazy paving). Currently around £150 for a Fine copy. Rating: ***
Snowdonia National Park. Still quite common and easy to find in perfect condition: readers seem to have battered their Broads but safeguarded their Snowdonias. Rating: * + * for a first edition.
Grass and Grasslands. Scarce in print-run terms, but it didn’t sell and remained in print throughout the 1970s, and so is not hard to find. Rating: **
Nature Conservation in Britain. Quite a common title, but note that only the first edition has the important foreword by Dudley Stamp. The second edition (1974) was updated, but the text figures are inferior. The red no-entry sign fades to orange. As most nature sanctuaries now ‘welcome’ visitors, maybe the red should change to green. Rating: *
Pesticides and Pollution. Everyone bought the Fontana paperback, and the hardback in its dramatic wrapper is less easily found than one might expect for such a well-known book. From now on, New Naturalist titles are easy to find in near-perfect condition. Pesticides was the last without duraseal wrappers or laminated jacket. Rating: **
Man and Birds. Another title where the first edition fetches almost twice as much as the reprint. So: *** for first and ** for reprint.
Woodland Birds. Same remarks apply. *** and **
The Lake District. Like many of the 1970s titles, this one is scarcer than it was, and the first edition is now definitely a two-star, if not a three-star, book, so **.
The Pollination of Flowers. A big book, still in use by university students and in demand from botanists. *** for the first edition, knock off a star for the reprint.
Finches. One of the better-selling 1970s titles, and still in demand due to its high reputation and pretty jacket. Again, a premium for the modest first edition, thus * (*).
Pedigree. Scarce, though frequently on display as a bookseller’s ‘prize’ copy and usually in Fine condition (was this title subject to some speculation?). Only one edition. I would award it three stars rather than four – many book fairs will have it. Rating ***
British Seals. Don’t tell anyone, but this title is actually scarcer than Pedigree. Until recently Seals was underpriced, but not any more. Very much a case of buy now while stocks last. No one seems to want the almost identical US version published by Taplinger. Rating: ** and rising.
Hedges. Plenty of copies about still, snug inside their nasty durasealed jackets, which afflict most of the titles published between 1974 and 1986 (a pity they don’t come off, isn’t it?). Again, while reprints are as common as sparrows, first editions are more like song thrushes: not as common as they used to be. Rating: *(*)
Ants. A scarce title, on sale for only a few years. Always seems to be in mint condition when found, may be because it was one tough read. It probably scrapes into the three star category now. Rating: ***
British Birds of Prey. The best-seller of the 1970s and still common, the now scarce first edition being much more desirable than the reprints. The book club edition has cheaper (darker green) bindings and no price on the front flap, though it does have ‘Collins’ on the spine. Both are issued in protective plastic film. The last reprints were issued in rather thin, wishy-washy jackets. *** for a first, ** for reprints.
Inheritance. Becoming harder to find and the price is rising. The first film-set title. Rating: **
British Tits. A large club edition (dark bindings, no price) and partial remaindering ensures plenty of copies about. ** for first, * for reprint and book club.
British Thrushes. A large club edition and partial remaindering made this one of the commonest of the recent titles in the late 1980s, most of which seem to have been sold by now. The red spines turn orange in sunlight. Rating: **
Natural History of Shetland. Silly prices are being charged for the first edition in its matt durasealed wrapper, which is not all that scarce, while no one seems to want the much cheaper 1986 reprint in its laminated jacket. *** and **
Waders. Still a fair number of copies around; specialist bird-book sellers usually stock it, ditto Tits, Thrushes and Finches. Do keep that horrible pink title band out of the sun. The first edition has crept into two stars, so *(*).
Natural History of Wales. Already quite scarce and moving up in price (about £65 for a fine copy in 2004). **
Farming and Wildlife. This title had a small print-run, and was on sale for only five years. Not surprisingly, it has become quite scarce. First-edition fetishists check: there was a reprint in 1983. **(*)
Mammals of the British Isles. Like all titles post-1981 destined for a short life in print, though I think the NHBS stocked it until 1991. Not as rare as the books on either side of it, for some reason. The weasel on the spine fades easily. No reprints of this one, though there was a Book Club edition with cheaper binding. **
Reptiles and Amphibians. Though the print-run was actually greater than the first editions of the previous two, it is now a much rarer book, and had, I remember, only a passing presence in the bookshops. Beware Book Club edition with cheaper binding. ****
Natural History of Orkney. The original hardback is probably the most elusive of all the mainstream New Naturalists, though the print-run tied with that of British Warblers. A copy was sold for £1,000 in 1998! The unsatisfactory ‘second state’, restricted to 500 copies, is worth less than half the original, but that is still a lot. Even the paperback is scarce. Beware ‘fake’ hardbacks built up from paperbacks, with laser-printed jackets. **** (both states). Pbk: **
British Warblers. Ties with Orkney as the rarest hardback title in the series, thanks to the unfortunate decision in 1985 to switch to paperback production, restricting the hardback edition to 750 copies for libraries and NN collectors. The ‘second state’ (paperbacks turned into hardbacks) of 500 copies is worth less than half the original hardback. The paperback is much commoner than the Orkney one. **** (both states). Pbk: *
Heathlands. The scarce first edition is worth much more than the reprint (which was available into the 1990s from the NHBS) or the large Book Club edition (which has a similar jacket but without the NN oval, and with cheaper bindings). The paperbacks of this and subsequent titles are not often collected, though they grow elusive, once the remaindered copies have passed away. The first edition is now around the £150 mark, so nudging into ****. ** for the reprint.
The New Forest. The hardback is scarce, and the spine vulnerable to colour-change. Like nearly all subsequent titles, the hardback sold out very quickly, while the paperback lingered for several years. Former on sale in late 1990s for £200-250, so: ****.
Ferns. The hardback in its delicious jacket has gone up in price quite horribly. The reason: only 1,600 books, twice that many people wanting it, and only a few copies on the market at any time. Beware inferior Book Club editions with dark binding. My copy was accidentally shot-blasted by a duck that had strayed into the study and then panicked: minor damage, which is to say, about £300 worth. Fine copies on sale in 2001 for £350-500. Shocking, isn’t it? ****
British Freshwater Fish. Like Ferns, this title has become remarkably scarce and sought-after. It is also one of those most sensitive to sunlight, courtesy of its bright red title band. The hardback NNs 74-81 were restricted to 1,500 or 1,600 copies, the smallest hardback editions in the series apart from Orkney/Warblers. Expect to pay £400+ for a mint copy, half that for one with still bright but faded colours. ****
The Hebrides. Currently the most expensive of all the New Naturalist main series with the usual exception of first state Orkney/Warblers. I don’t know why that is, since the hardback edition was apparently the same as other titles published in the early 90s. In 1998, I saw one on sale for £800! Even the paperback is rare. ****
The Soil. Another title with a light-sensitive jacket, in which the rich brown soil debris gradually turns to bleached-yellow desert over the years. There wasn’t the rush for this more academic title that there was for Hebrides, and the remaindered paperback was on sale for a few pounds in the mid-90s. Even so, with only 1,500 hardbacks printed, it was bound to go up in price eventually, and it has. Currently around £150-200 for a mint copy. ****
British Larks, Pipits and Wagtails. The short-lived hardback is now scarce, the paperback much less so (indeed my local bookshop had a copy on sale in 2002). Prices for a mint hardback now nudging £200-250, though demand is fickle – sometimes they sell, and sometimes they don’t. ****
Caves and Cave Life. This one took a while to creep up in price. Up to about 2001, you could find a hardback for under £100; some sellers are now charging £200+. ****
Wild and Garden Plants. Bob Burrow, who sells New Naturalists in Jersey, tells me this has seems to have become one of the scarcest titles. There is probably some law of chaos or randomness at work here; one month it will be Wild and Garden Plants that has gone to ground, in another Ladybirds, or Ferns. The hardback was snapped up, as usual. The paperback lingered for two years, before being ruthlessly remaindered. Recent hardback prices around £200+. Always look at the light-sensitive spine first. ****
Ladybirds. The first title to hit £30, but the big, chunky hardback was snapped up regardless, and was o/s by early 1996 after a shelf life of 18 months. The remaining paperback stock was bought by a specialist entomological bookseller in 2000. Another scarce and expensive book: available at around £100-150 in 1998, prices have risen to £350 or more for a mint copy. ****
The New Naturalists. The first edition of this title, of which the book you are reading is the second, went out of print within a few months, but was reprinted in 1996. I think all of them had a big white sticker attached to announce the 50th birthday of the series. You are advised to keep them on. The orange books on the spine are, alas, apt to turn yellow. The paperback is scarce, and, as paperbacks go, in demand. Prices I’ve seen quoted recently are in the £200 range for the first edition, £100 for the reprint and £50-70 for the paperback. Don’t come to me for copies; I flogged or gave them all away years ago. ****, one might say.
The Natural History of Pollination. There are two ‘states’ of this book. The true first edition has a yellow title band, the words ‘New Naturalist library’ on the half-title, and the editors and aims of the NN series listed as usual on the title page. These are missing on the ‘second state’, which also has a deeper yellow title band and a price of £35 instead of £30. Both say ‘First published 1996’, and so it is not immediately obvious that the second state is technically a reprint. The first state is, of course, worth more than the second, though three times as many were printed. There is also an American edition, published by Timber Press Inc. Going up slowly in price, the former is currently about £100, the latter about £60. *** (**)
Ireland. The true first edition hardback sold out within eight months of publication. About 900 further copies were bound up from stock, and, as far as I know, there is no reliable way of telling ‘first state’ from second. Until one can, they are in practice all one edition, and an unusually generous one. 3,000 hardback copies of Ireland were printed, twice as many as its immediate predecessors. Even so, the book was o/s by February 2000, and it now commands a secondhand price of about £80-100. This is likely to rise. ** for now.
Plant Disease. First published in October 1999, the hardback sold ‘surprisingly well’ and was o/s by July the following year, though not reprinted. The paperback was a slow seller, and the last 500 were remaindered in June 2001. With only 2,000 hardback copies printed, this is set to become the rarest title since 1995. Buy now, whilst it’s only **.
Lichens. Another fast-selling title, which helped to convince the publishers that they could now sell 2,500 to 3,000 hardbacks of any NN title, even at £35. It had sold out by the end of 2001. ** for now.
Amphibians and Reptiles. The hardback edition was increased at the last minute to 3,000 ‘to meet expected demand’, a print-run shared by NNs 90-94. Two-thirds were sold in the first two months, and the book is now o/p, though you could still find it on sale in 2004. ** for now.
Loch Lomondside. The hardback print-run of Loch Lomondside, Lichens and The Broads was 2,500, but whether this will come to affect the secondhand price it is too soon to say. As usual, the hardback sold well, and was o/p by the end of 2002, while the remaining paperback stock had to be remaindered. ** for now.
The Broads. Published in November 2001, there were only 180 copies left in stock four months later. The hardback was o/p by 2004. ** for now, but I’ve a feeling that this one will rise and rise.
Moths. Hardback print-runs of 3,000 are by now the norm, ensuring a slightly longer life in print. Within four months, 2,000 hardbacks had been sold, but only 700 paperbacks. Will collectors be paying ten times their current price in ten years time? Don’t ask me, I don’t know nothing. **, as new.
Nature Conservation. This title, my second New Naturalist, sold as well as the others, but I had hoped for better things. The paperback, I see, is already o/s by spring 2004, when the hardback had nearly sold out, and I don’t suppose it will be reprinted – ****! Oh – it has two stars.
Lakeland. Published October 2002, and still in print late 2004.
Bats. Published March 2003, and still in print late 2004.
Seashore. Published April 2004 and in print.
Northumberland. In print.
Up to about 1980, the monographs would sit on the second-hand bookshelves like birds on a branch, while people snapped up copies of Sea-Birds and Dragonflies for thirty times the original sales price. Not all New Naturalist fans collect the monographs, but many do and for most titles there are fewer copies to go round. They are offered at prices that range from bargains to near-swindles, and I urge you to shop around for the commoner ones. The scarcer single-edition titles will always be expensive, for demand probably exceeds the supply of collectable copies. Consider a title like Hawfinch with a print-run of about 3,000. Assume the ‘standard’ wastage of 25% for books of that vintage, and that perhaps 500 copies went to public libraries and institutions. Suppose further, that of the remainder about half were bashed-up or lost their jackets, and we are left with fewer than 800 copies in collectable condition. And I reckon that there are over 1,000 New Naturalist collectors. Enough said?
The Badger. With no fewer than six editions, this grand old classic still graces many second-hand shelves. Most first editions show their age, however, with that infernal salmon-pink spine fading away to grey. Rating: * + * for a mint first edition.
The Redstart. Although there was only a single edition dated 1950, The Redstart (or the ‘Restart’ as it is often listed) and Yellow Wagtail were obtainable throughout the 1960s in fresh jackets, hence the surprisingly fresh state of preservation of many copies. Rating: **
The Wren. A scarce book, but the price varies according to condition, Fine Wrens being at a premium. Currently averaging around £200, I saw one presumably tiptop copy on sale for £425. Decidedly ****
The Yellow Wagtail. See Redstart. Some copies of Wagtail have sooty smudges on the jacket, presumably a printing fault. This book seems marginally commoner than Redstart, though the print-run was about the same after 1,000 Wagtails had been pulped. Rating: **
The Greenshank. Another scarce book, and usually sunned. Like all Nethersole-Thompson’s bird monographs, it is in demand from a large ornithological market. Rating: *** Prices currently in excess of £100 for Fine copies.
The Fulmar. Widely regarded as a book of legendary scarcity, though probably no more so than Greenshank, Heron or Hawfinch. The spine is nearly always sunned, and the strain of 500 pages often tells on the binding and jacket. Like the other scarce monographs, you should try shopping around for Fulmars. A presentation copy from James Fisher was on offer for £150 recently, but you should manage to knock at least a third off that for a copy you could live with. Rating: ****
Fleas, Flukes and Cuckoos. The first edition is scarce, the two reprints less so. Hence a large disparity in quoted prices. ***(**)
Ants. Despite its short life, this is by no means the most difficult of the monographs. The surprise is not that it is scarce, but that we find it at all. ***.
The Herring Gull’s World. In demand as a classic study of animal behaviour. Rather scarce as a first edition, commoner as a reprint. The later reprints shamelessly omitted the foreword by Konrad Lorenz. Avoid the last, inferior reprint of 1976. Rating: *(*)
Mumps, Measles and Mosaics. Currently the rarest of the monographs, possibly because of its dull jacket. A Fine copy was sold recently for £300. ****
The Heron. Scarce, especially in its striking dust jacket, and only one edition. In recent years it has edged from *** to ****.
Squirrels. Not among the scarcer monographs, but still in short supply and a nice little book, too. Rating: ***
The Rabbit. Scarcer than Squirrels, and possibly more *** than **, though much depends on condition.
Birds of the London Area. Scarce, but never a high flier. I had never seen a copy in its dust jacket until 1992 when it seemed suddenly to be everywhere, though no one seemed to want it. It’s now scarce again. ***
The Hawfinch. Scarce, sought after, having reached the pound per page point. Many dustwrappers are slightly smaller than the book. The reddish bird on the spine fades easily. I once saw a copy in a plain green sugar-paper jacket. Did they run out of Ellis jackets and wrap the last few in plain ones? Rating: ****
The Salmon. One of the commoner monographs, especially as reprints, printed in larger numbers for the angling market. A first is worth more than a reprint: *** compared to **.
Lords and Ladies. Scarce, and often ex-library. This is one of the rarest titles in the series, and now in the same high flying company as Heron, Hawfinch et al. It is a smashing book, but the slow sales didn’t encourage more botanical titles. Rating: ****
Oysters. Also rather scarce, but it sold well enough to be reprinted once. Beautifully written. Rating: *** (and ** for the reprint).
The House Sparrow. Also rather scarce, despite two reprints, and sought after by birders. Rating: *** (and ** for the reprints).
The Wood Pigeon. The print-run would suggest that Wood Pigeons are as scarce as Sparrows and Rabbits, but one seems to see more of them about and for the moment I will leave it with **.
The Trout. The commonest monograph after Badger and Herring Gull, intended for the large fisherman’s market. Reprints abound, but the first edition is a little more elusive. *** for the first, ** for the reprints.
The Mole. Quite a few Moles about, often in immaculate condition. Make sure it is the home-produced Collins one and not the US or Reader’s Union variety (on the other hand, if that doesn’t matter to you, ignore this advice). Rating: **