I’m not about to pretend that I presently know much about Edward Lhwyd. However even from the little I’ve learned recently, it has become very clear to me that he is most certainly someone about whom I wish to know more – much more, in fact. After all, as a naturalist myself who harbors interests in both antiquarian studies as well as philology, how could I not wish to know more about the life someone from the seventeenth century who was an enthusiastic botanist as a child, attended Oxford University where he spent considerable time in its Botanical Garden, and through diligent study and work was eventually appointed the second keeper of the then newly established Ashmolean Museum – all “under his own sail” due to being born the bastard son of a fellow who himself was ruined during the English Civil War? Add to this his interests in paleontology, antiquarian studies, and Celtic languages, and he seems to be all I could wish for in an intellectual ancestor.
Fortunately, University of Wales Press is set to publish Dr. Brynley F. Roberts’ Edward Lhwyd, c.1660–1709, Naturalist, Antiquary, Philologist as the seventh volume in their Scientists of Wales series this coming June. (For those in the U.S., University of Chicago Press will be distributing the book there as well beginning in September 2022.) Be assured, byddaf yn darllen y llyfr hwn gyda diddordeb mawr (I’ll be reading this book with great interest).
