Glaucus; or the Wonders of the Shore

London: MacMillan and Co., 1886. xi, 245, 12 col plates, text illus. . HB. 8vo, full prize calf, by Bickers & Son, London, spine with raised bands, black ruled border to both boards and decorative floral motifs to corners and spine compartments, gt crest of Leamington High School for Girls to front board, marbled edges and endpapers. Rubbed/lightly scuffed to extremities, spine a little faded; endpapers foxed. Inscription to original recipient to flyleaf and later decorative bookplate of Hampshire ornithologist, Michael Bryant. Vg.. This work, first published in 1855, reflects the growing interest in marine natural history during the mid-Nineteenth Century. It contains 12 attractive chromolithographic plates of animals found on the seashores of southern Britain. Kingsley spent time in Torbay, south Devon, and was an admirer and friend of P.H. Gosse, who did much to encourage a popular interest in sea-shore life through books such as, <i>The Aquarium</i> and <i>A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast</i>. Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), better known as author of <i>The Water Babies</i>, <i>Hereward the Wake</i> and <i>Westward Ho!</i>, was a Church of England priest, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He was also an enthusiastic natural historian and a friend and correspondent of Charles Darwin..