Natural History of Serpents

An Essay Towards A Natural History Of Serpents is a book by Charles Owen published in 1742 in London. The book is broken down into three parts: The first part talks about a general view of serpents such as their motion, diet, habits, and physical features. The second part gives a View of serpents known in several parts of the world described by their names, countries, and qualities. Finally, The third part contains six dissertations that are collateral to the subject of the book. The book contains seven copper plate engravings, due to the high cost of having copper plate engravings, a solution was to incorporate subscriptions to help aid the printing of this book.

Title page of the book, gives an overview of the contents

Usage

Copper Plates

Copper Plates

Audience and Circulation

The audience was anyone who had an interest in serpents. It was written in a way that doesn't exclude anyone from reading it. Audiences could have ranged from collectors to students interested in researching serpents. From the front title page, it stated "Sold by John Gray, at the Cross-Keys in the Poultry, near Cheapside". The precise detail of the copper plate engravings also has more features that could be enjoyed by various audiences. Another audience comes from the people that subscribed to the printing of this book.

Subscriptions

Due to the high costs of printing, authors came to subscribers for financial help. Similar to subscriptions today, subscribers would financially help by donating money and in return have their names in the book as a subscriber and usually also get a copy of the book after printing. This book had many subscribers. This was due in part to how expensive the copper plate engravings were. This book contains seven engravings so printing a lot of copies would cost a lot of money. Thus, these subscribers would be some of the first people to start the circulation of this book.

Historical Significance

A dedication to Sir Hans Sloane