When considering the country’s most famous early naturalists of the 18th and 19th centuries, John James Audubon comes to mind as the consummate painter of birds. William Bartram holds the crown for recounting experiences with fauna and flora during his travels through the South. Other natural historians of that era included Mark Catesby, who wrote and illustrated the first published account of North American wildlife. John Edwards Holbrook, also a writer and painter, provided the first systematic accounts of the country’s reptiles and amphibians. John Abbot, who was also a superb naturalist, is only now getting his proper recognition, thanks to a recently published book. 

The University of Georgia Press is noted for its Wormsloe Foundation Nature Books, which have vitalized public interest in ecology and natural history throughout the Southeast. The newest in the series, “Loving Insects: John Abbot’s Drawings & Natural History Collecting in the Atlantic World, 1760s–1840s” (2026; University of Georgia Press) by Beth Fowkes Tobin, lives up to the tradition. After more than a decade of painstaking research, the author has produced an outstanding book that reveals and celebrates the remarkable illustrations and natural history notes of John Abbot. Although like other naturalists of the era, Abbot was interested in all wildlife, Tobin’s book focuses on his extraordinary drawings and personal connections with insects.  

In the first chapter, “A Peculiar Liking for Insects,” Tobin discusses the early background of Abbot and his interest in being a published natural history illustrator as well as a collector of specimens. He focused especially on insects, for both the London scientific community and his own collections. Like other explorers of the times, he left London for America with plans to return with his bounty of specimens and drawings. After eventually arriving in southern Georgia, he remained there “for the whole of his long life because he loved insects.” In other words, “rather than return to London” he chose” to live among those creatures he found endlessly fascinating.”

The chapters “Going Abroad to Collect Foreign Insects” and “The Harvest of Many Years of Industry” discuss the eagerness among Europe’s natural historians in the late 1700s and early 1800s to acquire large collections of insects on a global scale. The passion was great enough that many an adventurous youth left the Old World to travel to the New on a quest to find undiscovered and exciting creatures. John Abbot was one of the many.

The writing throughout “Loving Insects” makes the story of an unheralded natural history personality engaging, and the accompanying illustrations are exceptional. Abbot’s drawings of butterflies, complete with the caterpillar of each species crawling on the host plant, are incredible to me. How someone could figure out the identification and relationships decades before any field guides and without prior knowledge is remarkable. One of his drawings is of a species not even described by scientists until the 1900s! The fact that Abbot’s drawings ended up as the main attraction in the best known entomology book of the times, “The Insects of Georgia,” published in 1797, speak to their accuracy.

The final chapter, “Abbot’s Legacy,” provides an intriguing account and possibly a partial explanation for why John Abbot has not formerly received the recognition given to other natural historians of the early days of scientific discovery in North America. Tobin makes an indisputable case that Abbot was a top-rate, scientifically accurate illustrator of insects, spiders and other invertebrates. However, she provides an extensive discussion of how in the early 1900s  a well-known entomologist “published an underhanded attack on Abbot’s credentials” not only as a credible natural historian but also as having produced some of the most impressive illustrations of insects ever. Tobin clearly intends to right this wrong.

Anyone who was unsure about how fascinating and important our six-legged biota are will definitely appreciate John Abbot and will be loving insects after reading this book.

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