Charles Waterton 1782-1865: Traveller and Conservationist: Conservationist and Traveller

by Julia Blackburn

Charles Waterton was the first conservationist who fought to protect wild nature against the destruction and pollution of Victorian industrialisation. During his lifetime he was famous for his eccentricities, but also for his achievements and his opinions. A Yorkshire landowner, he turned his park into a sanctuary for animals and birds. As an explorer he learned to survive in the tropical rain forests of South America without a gun or the society of other white men. He was an authority on the poisons used by South American Indians and a taxidermist of note. The huge public that read his books included Dickens, Darwin and Roosevelt. Since his death the memory of Waterton's personal eccenticities has flourished, while the originality of his ideas and work has often suffered. Using his surviving papers, Julia Blackburn has redressed the balance in a biogr aphy that restores Waterton to his place as the first conservationist of the modern age.

Genres: Biography, Biography Memoir, Natural History

Paperback

First published September 11, 1997

About the author

Julia Blackburn is the author of several other works of nonfiction, including Charles Waterton and The Emperor’s Last Island, and of two novels, The Book of Color and The Leper’s Companions, both of which were short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her most recent book, Old Man Goya, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Blackburn lives in England and Italy.

Reviews

[Gerard de Bruin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uitstekende vroege Blackburn. Helaas nog zonder de biografische uitstapjes. De Nederlandse vertaling is - mild uitgedrukt - stroef. Dat is jammer

[Adam Welz · Rating 3 out of 5]

About a very interesting man. Mostly very well-written & I appreciated the author not making its subject into an object of ridicule (which would be easy to do) but I'm giving it three stars because it was sometimes confusingly structured, unclear & poorly referenced. I couldn't help feeling that it would have been a very good book if a stronger editor had worked on it.