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. The pages were most likely made from rags or linen. With the coming of a new scientific publishing era, this book shows a prime example of a mix of both science and religious attributes and gives an insight on how early science books/papers were written.

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. The precise detail of the copper plate engravings also added features that could be enjoyed by various audiences. When it comes to circulation, the front title states "Sold by John Gray, at the Cross-Keys in the Poultry, near Cheapside". So, in the beginning, circulation started by being sold near Cehapside. Another audience and source of circulation come from the people that subscribed to the printing of this book. In this specific copy was owned by George Sherwood and then was later owned by Charles W. Burr, a professor of nervous diseases at Upenn. Finally, it was given to Penn in 1925.

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.

Annotations and Marginalia

This copy doesn't contain any annotations or marginalia. A reason could be that the book was in the hands of collectors or people who just wanted to read for curiosity. Other copies of this book could definitely have annotations. A student studying what serpents eat and how they move proves as an example of where annotations can be made.

Historical Significance

A dedication to Sir Hans Sloane

Sir Han's Sloane

A very interesting part of this book is that there is a dedication to Sir Hans Sloane. Sir Hans Slone was a physician by trade but was also a collector of objects from around the world. . Slaone collected more than 71,000 items and it became the founding collection of the British Museum. This dedication sparks the idea that this book was in fact a science book.