The New Naturalists
When browsing in the mid-500s of the Dewey Decimal system in the stacks down below, the section devoted to the natural sciences, the eye is often drawn by the colourful spines of a particular collection of books. The design is strikingly attractive even within this compressed linear compass. It invites you to draw the book out from its neighbouring volumes and investigate further. So let us do just that. These spines tell us that the publisher is Collins, the publishing company set up in Glasgow in 1819 by one William Collins, a Presbyterian schoolmaster. Above this are the conjoined letters NN, printed in varying colours and contained with an oval bubble, often incorporated into the broader design. This stands for New Naturalist, for this is the series in question. The number at the top, again encircled in a round bubble and printed in varying colours (and fonts) tells us how far we have come in the series. So what are the New Naturalists, and who de