Judging a book by its cover - and by its contents

 

Edwardian publishers certainly knew how to produce exquisite book covers. I found this charming, gilded, art nouveau example in a second-hand bookshop a few years ago. I was beguiled by the cover, but even more enchanted by the contents.

The cover illustration, and others inside, was painted by artist/illustrator William Bennett Robinson (1870-1915).

The text is by Thomas W. Hoare, Teacher of Nature Study, about whom there seems to be very little information, although I did find one reference that suggests he might have died in 1939.

The book is an omnibus edition of seven books of practical nature study, in the Look About You series published from 1904 onwards. I’m guessing that this de lux edition, which must have been quite expensive, might have been published around 1914. The publisher, T.C. & E.C. Jack, was taken over by another Scottish publisher, Nelson, in 1915.

Here’s Hoare’s preface, setting out his intentions, using the study of nature close to home as a gateway to a broader education based on a child’s natural curiosity. It seems to have been intended as a structured guide to educating children at home.

Each of the seven books is composed of lessons in the form of a conversation between a family member and the children, sometimes with experiments they performed together, and at the end of every lesson there are four questions or tasks for the children to address. At the end of every book there are teachers’ notes, which strongly emphasise the need for kindness and compassion for animals and the need to exercise care and restraint in collecting and keeping living organisms.

Harvest time. The period illustrations capture a lost rural world, of farming with heavy horses and hard manual labour.

Aeronautics, before powered flight became commonplace. The book teaches scientific concepts like cloud formation, rising air currents and air density, by referencing familiar everyday phenomena, from condensed steam from boiling kettles to intrepid balloonists.

Colour plates for insect identification

Wild flowers, butterflies and moths

And when lessons are over, letting off steam by chucking snowballs at a snowman effigy of teacher.

And finally, something else about the Look-About-You series that distinguished them from contemporary early 20th.century outdoors natural history manuals that were mostly written for boys; this series was for the edification of sons and daughters.

You can download free digitised copies of some of the series from the Project Gutenberg website

 

Velvet shank

 

Autumn is the main toadstool season but some hardy fungi produce theirs in the depths of winter, even during periods of frost and snow. This is velvet shanks Flammulina velutipes on the trunk of an old lime tree on the bank of the river Wear in Durham city. On mild, wet days the cap is smooth and shiny. The pale stem (stipe) darkens as it matures, developing a velvety texture.

Books say this species is edible when cooked. John Wright, the The River Cottage Mushroom Handbook described the flavour as ‘unusual ….. distinctly sweet and malty’ and the texture ‘pleasantly chewy’ but cautions against mistaking it for sulphur tuft (gastrointestinal devastation) or the funeral bell (the essential caution is implicit in the name). Velvet shank differs from both in having white spores.

 

A cowslip at Christmas

 

These cowslips have been flowering in my garden since mid-December. This particular plant often flowers in late winter, but I can’t recall ever seeing cowslips in full bloom at Christmas. This unseasonal behaviour is likely a response climate disruption, to the plant recovering from summer drought and then producing rapid new growth in autumnal daylengths that would be similar to those that initiate flowering in spring. Since then, mild weather with few frosts and only one day of light snow have encouraged it to bloom.