Nature’s Messenger: Mark Catesby and His Adventures in a New World

In this enlightening biography, nature writer Dean (A Window to Heaven) traces the life of British naturalist Mark Catesby (1683–1749), whose The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands was among the first European accounts of the flora and fauna of the Americas and influenced John James Audubon. Dean begins with Catesby’s upbringing on the outskirts of London, where his family’s status as gentry afforded him connections with leading botanists. By 1712, Catesby was an ambitious young botanist and travelled throughout Virginia and Jamaica, making a name for himself on the specimens he collected and sent back to England. Impressed with his work, the Royal Society of London in 1722 commissioned Catesby “to collect, draw, and describe as many of the trees, bushes, flowers, birds, mammals, insects, and fish as he could,” the results of which were collected in his Natural History. The frequent speculation about Catesby’s mindset (“Catesby would have stepped onto Bay Street with relief”) is distracting, but Dean largely makes the most of the sometimes limited surviving evidence on his subject. Additionally, the discussion of how Catesby consulted with Native Americans and enslaved Africans to better understand regional ecology illuminates the overlooked contributions of those communities to European science. This makes for an informative account of an important if lesser-known naturalist. (June)