Nature Rambles in London

[1908].  xviii, 318, [6], with nearly 100 photographic illustrations by Henry Irving and further line drawings in text.  In green cloth-covered boards with black lettering and decorations on front panel, black and gilt lettering on spine.  12mo.  Cloth is worn, with a smattering of small marks on front panel, gently rubbed and rounded at corners and spine ends.  Endpapers moderately toned.  Prize inscription, dated 1911, on front free endpaper verso else internally neat, clean, bright and tight.

As described in a contemporary review, “Miss Hall has prepared the notes on nature rambles…in non-technical language and arranged according to the season’s changes.  Apart from discourses on trees, a considerable amount of space is devoted to the descriptions of the birds that reside in or frequent [London’s parks], and not the least interesting page tell of the bee-hive that is located under Miss Hall’s charge at Stepney Gardens”. Kate Hall (born 1861)  was curator of Stepney Museum, the first female museum curator in the country.  An important little volume on London’s flora and as a marker of the development of women’s rights in the late 19th century.