British Butterflies Indices [Manuscript]

Worn half calf over marbled boards, morocco spine label and faded paper label with number. Brown endpapers and large bookplate showing the library of ‘Frederick A. Wood, Highfields, Chew Magna, Somerset’ with handwritten library numbers to the margin. Red speckled edges. Wood endowed the library of nearby Weston Super Mare in Somerset and it seems that some of his manuscripts were held there for some period - possibly including this one. The paper is printed with blue lines; Wood supplies a manuscript title page and key to the verso followed by 146 pages of entries, set out in four columns relating to butterfly details (Names, Genera and Species) followed by page references from J O Westwood, The Butterflies of Great Britain; Francis O Morris, A History of British Butterflies and a work by Goodwin.

Wood who died in 1904 only published one work which was a natural history of his Somerset village, Chew Magna. This manuscript reveals an almost obsessive interest in collating the main British sources of information on lepidoptera.