Complete and unabridged, with 37 full-page plates by Karl Robert von Planitz, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot and Francisque Millet. Animals of the world described for the general reader: their habits, their uses, the anecdotes told of them, and the plain natural history behind those anecdotes. Jane Loudon wrote botany and gardening for women in the 1840s and made a living at it, unusually for her day. She separates observation from story, and is often the first popular writer to do so. Its 287 original illustrations have been carefully restored and coloured for this edition.

Jane Loudon (1807-1858) was an English writer born near Birmingham. Orphaned and penniless at seventeen, she wrote a science fiction novel to support herself, married the horticultural writer John Claudius Loudon after he sought out its author, and became the most successful writer on gardening for women of her century. Her works include The Mummy! and Gardening for Ladies.