Not so very far along my reading of Helen Scales’ new Eye of the Shoal, I found myself reading about the friendship and collaboration of John Ray and Francis Willughby on the 1686 book De Historia Piscium. However as soon as I read Willughby’s name, my mind immediately flashed to the copy of Tim Birkhead’s recently published book The Wonderful Mr Willughby; The First True Ornithologist sitting on my desk. Ichthyology, ornithology – one person publishing foundational books in them both… Those were the days!
Actually, Willughby died at the age of 36, prior to the completion and publication of both the De Historia Piscium and Ornithologiae Libri Tres – both of which were completed and published by Ray under Willughby’s name (now that’s friendship!). However to be fair, while Ray has become known to history as one of the great early naturalists, it was, as Birkhead explains, Willughby’s ideas that really established much of the structure by which natural history came to be studied. Thus, in the words of the book’s publisher, Bloomsbury, “now, for the first time, Willughby’s own story and genius are given the attention they deserve.”
