More About Wild Nature, Eliza Brightwen

More About Wild Nature (T. Fisher Unwin) is Eliza Brightwen’s second book, published in 1892. A Scottish author and self-taught naturalist, Brightwen began writing at age 60 and worked mostly from the grounds around her home, The Grove in Stanmore. In More About Wild Nature she tells tales of adventures with her favourite animals around her home, many becoming personal pets, beginning with chapters such as “Katie the Shrew” and “Joey the Kestrel”. Wholly living up to her name, Brightwen describes with gentle and humorous luminosity the sights surrounding her home as well as thoughts on how to record these “impressions of nature” and create home museums - this concept stemming from her own home museum at The Grove.

This has been one of our personal favourite passages from any book since it came into our lives only last autumn, in a second hand bookshop on the Isle of Skye. It describes perfectly the reason for nature writing, and for all it sang on a normal day it feels particularly apt at this time when for many, word-paintings are all we have of certain scenes of the natural world.

Eliza Brightwen was born in Banff, Aberdeenshire in 1830. A self taught naturalist, she published six books in her lifetime and upon her death in 1906, a collection of essays were published titled Last Hours with Nature.