Idle Days in Patagonia.

London: London, Chapman & Hall, Ltd,, 1893. First edition, one of 1,750 copies, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: "To B. Angwin from W. H. Hudson. March 14 1906". The recipient was perhaps Benjamin Angwin, schoolmaster in Berkshire. Hudson's inscribed copies are uncommon on the market. Hudson (1841-1922) was an Anglo-Argentine naturalist, ornithologist, and critic of Darwinism. This book is an entertaining autobiographical account of his 1871 expedition to Patagonia. "The first one hundred pages which are essentially autobiographical are devoted to brilliant narration of adventurous experience... He did make a valuable collection of the birds of the region, though he found only one new species - he had hoped to discover six or seven. When he sent out this newly found bird with the rest of his collection to the London Zoological Society, the previously unknown species - a black tyrant bird - was promptly named Cnipolegus hudsoni in his honor" (Frederick, pp. 27-8). The book also includes a varied collection of essays, among which one on bird music and another on the colour of human eyes. This copy is in the second issue binding, omitting the Chapman & Hall device from the back cover and replacing their imprint at the foot of the spine with that of J. M Dent & Co. While Payne notes that copies in this binding do not have Chapman & Hall's publisher's catalogue at the end, it is present here. Large octavo. Original burgundy buckram, spine lettered in gilt, ornament to front cover in gilt, top edge trimmed, others untrimmed. Illustrated throughout by Alfred Hartley and J. Smit. Spine faded, worn at ends with a little loss of cloth, extremities rubbed, free endpapers browned, intermittent faint foxing, else clean. A very good copy. Payne A7b. John Towner Frederick, William Henry Hudson, 1972.