The Art of Botanical & Bird Illustration: An artist's guide to drawing and illustrating realistic flora, fauna, and botanical scenes from nature

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Complete sets of The Naturalist's Miscellany, and even individual volumes, fetch thousands of pounds today. Edward Lear had an eye for landscapes and an ear for rhyme, but it was as an ornothological artist that he first displayed his prolific talent. He created 80 bird portraits for John Gould, beginning in 1832 when he was just 20 years old. For many, they are the world’s finest ornithological illustrations. Alan was born in Essex in 1957, and was keenly interested in the natural world from an early age. At the age of fourteen, he joined the Rye Meads Ringing Group. His teenage years were spent training to ring, and the opportunity to study live birds 'in the hand' was crucial to his approach to bird illustration. The time spent examining birds' structure, age and moult has been pivotal to his development as a bird artist. The book's production cost Aubudon a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, the equivalent of over two million dollars today. After leaving school, he studied Graphic Design at the Middlesex Polytechnic and in 1980 embarked on a freelance career. Over the years, he has illustrated over 80 books or magazines, including The Macmillan Guide to Bird Identification and the accompanying Macmillan Birder's Guide to European and Middle Eastern Birds; Storks, Ibises and Spoonbills of the World; Kingfishers, Bee-eaters and Rollers; Finches and Sparrows: an Identification Guide and Sylvia Warblers and made major contributions to avifaunas of various regions of the world, notably in the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia and East Asia in the Helm series.

Alan Harris is probably best known for his meticulously accurate field-guide illustrations. He is a dedicated field ornithologist and has travelled extensively in search of birds, particularly in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, but also Canada, Florida, the West Indies and Hong Kong. Gould copied Audubon's subscription model but opted for the new lithography process. Its results were superior to both copper and wood engraving, and allowed for hundreds of prints each capturing the artist's original delicacy and detail. It was a bold and innovative idea, although a young artist called Edward Lear had actually used it first for his own illustrations of parrots. Alan won the British Birds magazine 'Bird Illustrator of the Year' award in 1982 and has been joint Art Consultant to that magazine since 1988.

One of Lear's biggest fans is naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough: "Lear’s bird plates, to my eyes at least, rank among the finest of their kind". Attenborough has a prized collection of all of Lear's colour plates, acquired over several decades after he became aware of his work for Gould in 1954.

Gould worked as a taxidermist for the newly founded Zoological Society of London, and in 1830 saw an opportunity for some private enterprise when he was preparing to exhibit a formidable collection of bird skins which had been sent from the Himalayas.