The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre [Paperback]

Jean-Henri Fabre (Author), Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (Translator), Edwin Way Teale (Introduction), Gerald Durrell (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0807085138 | ISBN-13: 978-0807085134 | Publication Date: April 30, 1991

Jean Henri Fabre, nineteenth-century French entomologist and author of the massive Souvenirs Entomoligies, has inspired perhaps more modern writer/naturalists than any other chronicler of the natural world. Edwin Way Teale's selection of the most compelling of Fabre's writing makes The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre the essential edition of the writer Darwin called "the incomparable observer."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Out of print for 20 years, this splendid collection of 40 excerpts from Fabre's works will enchant a whole new generation of readers. De Mattos's fine translations convey the freshness of the 19th-century entomologist's lyrical writings, fully in keeping with his intention of capturing the interest of young people, "to make them love the natural history which you scientists make them hate." And it is easy to be drawn into Fabre's fascination with insects even when he is only watching them pilfer bits of a decomposing mole or observing caterpillars traipse endlessly and unprofitably in a circle--behavior that moves him to bemoan "the abysmal stupidity of insects as a class." Elsewhere he ambushes red Amazon ants to determine how they follow paths they have previously marked, and he fires a mortar to see if the noise disrupts the cicadas' summer song. He also describes the courtship of a pair of scorpions as they wander, hands clasped, exchanging "ogling glances" in an evening idyll that concludes with the bride devouring her mate. Natural Science Book Club selection; first serial to Harper's.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"The writings of Fabere are classic because they compose an accurate natural history of creatures all around us, written in a vivid personal style that will never grow old or tired." —E.O. Wilson

"This is beautiful, knowledgeable prose." —Annie Dillard, from On Nature

"Fabre could write about his discoveries simply and beautifully so that even people who did not understand anything about entomology could appreciate them." —Gerald Durrell

"What makes Fabre interesting as a writer is his unabashed emotional involvement in the behavior of his subjects. He is no cold, aloof observer, but a man who is at once fascinated and repelled by the gap between human values and reason and the blind, amoral strategies or instinct. His descriptions of how insects conduct their lives read at once as factual natural history and moral parables—but parables modern in their recognition that there are no parallels for human ethics in nature." —Robert Finch and John Elder, from The Norton Book of Nature Writing

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Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (April 30, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807085138
• ISBN-13: 978-0807085134
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #773,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For the naturalist in all of us, May 26, 2005

By 

Hallstatt Prince (MA. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre (Concord Library Series) (Hardcover)

In this book Fabre is not only a taxonomist but a behaviorist and he describes insect behavior in a charming and almost poetic way. This book is in no way dry in the way some find books on science to be and as much as it teaches us about insects and other classes of invertebrates it also teaches us about observation. And though I am vehemently opposed to mixing science with mysticism this book would probably be enjoyed by those seeking self improvement and spirituality as much as it would be enjoyed by the scientist.
When I was a child I had an aunt (God bless you Aunt Alberta) who lived on the West coast. She was a Biology teacher. Every once and awhile care packages of books would come from California. One of those books was "The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre". My mother would sometimes read to me from the book when our family when for a drive. I used to hang on every word.
In a way that book changed my life as I am now a scientist.
I think it can change yours as well. In this loud brash world let Fabre guide you into the gentle world of observation.
Highly recommended.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabre's fascinating insect stories/observations, February 8, 1998

By 

David Graham (Shell, Ecuador) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre (Paperback)

This was far and away my favorite book of the year when I read it a few years ago. Fabre (1823-1915) was no dry, pedantic writer of insect anatomy and classification, like many 19th and 20th century entomologists. He was a keen observer, insightful scientist, and lively writer. His passionate commentary - just the sort of "subjective" stuff excluded from scientific journals - is what makes the text come alive; for Fabre makes the reader aware that these insects have LIVES, and heightens our awareness of what is going on in the world around us which we so rarely bother to notice. I highly recommend purchasing this or any other book of collected writings by this outstanding man.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Book that Finally Clinched my Interest in Insects, March 31, 2006

By 

David B Richman (Mesilla Park, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The insect world of J. Henri Fabre (Hardcover)

Sometime during the 1950s I got this book out of the local library. It took me only a little while to almost literally devour it! I had been primed by a natural curiosity about insects, the acquisition of the 1952 Yearbook of Agriculture on Insects and the "Golden Guide to Insects" by Herbert Zim. When I read Fabre's writings excerpted in "The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre" I was hooked. Here was no dry account of very obscure facts, but instead a vibrant exposition of the actual lives of insects! And what subjects for study- pine processionary caterpillars, giant peacock moths, sacred scarabs, solitary wasps, mason bees, grasshoppers, cicadas, spittle bugs and on and on. Fabre had his blind spots (he never figured out how scorpions actually mate, disavowed Darwin and often made mistakes in identification.) However he was a great writer and you have to be totally uninterested not to be captivated by his prose.

Soon I was catching, observing and collecting insects. While I had other interests from time to time, these and the related spiders (I became a specialist in the latter) had caught my imagination and my fate was sealed.

This is perhaps the best anthology of excerpts from Fabre's works and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn something of the usually unnoticed activities in every yard, garden, woods or desert.