Rainbow Dust

Peter Marren is a wildlife writer, journalist and authority on invertebrate folklore and names. His books include The New Naturalists, which won the Society for the History of Natural History’s Thackray Medal, Britain’s Rare Flowers, which won the Botanical Society of the British Isles’ Presidents’ Award. He won a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for work on Bugs Britannica.

• i: Introduction: The Painted Lady1.: Meeting the Butterfly2.: Chasing the Clouded Yellow3.: Graylings: The Birthday of a Passion4.: Gatekeepers: Collecting with Jean Froissart, John Fowles and Vladimir Nabokov5.: Lady Glanville's Fritillary6.: At the Sign of the Chequered Skipper7.: The Golden Hog or The Wonderful Names of Butterflies8.: Seeing Red: The Admiral9.: Fire and Brimstone: Butterflies and the Imagination10.: Silver Washes and Pearl Borders: Painting Butterflies11.: Endgame: The Large Blue and Other Dropouts12.: The Wall or How to Save a Butterfly13.: Envoi: Aurora or the Daughter of Dawnii: Appendix: British Butterfliesiii: Notesiv: Bibliographyv: Acknowledgementsvi: Index

A scholarly and captivating excursion into the history of natural history, further enlivened by vivid portraits of some of the butterfly enthusiasts of the past