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Butterflies:
UK general interest books

Field guides, atlases and regional guides and similar are on a separate page.

The books are arranged by publication date with the most recent at the top.

Butterfly pages

UK field guides, site guides, checklists & atlases

UK general interest: biography, gardening, science, etc

Butterfly Conservation: national and regional publications

Butterfly art

Rainbow Dust: Three Centuries of Delight in British Butterflies

Peter Marren

Square Peg (Penguin Random House)

2016

"Much more than just another field guide or a natural history of butterflies Rainbow Dust explores the ways in which butterflies delight and inspire us all, naturalists and non-naturalists alike. Beginning with the author's own experience of hunting and rearing butterflies as a boy, Peter Marren considers the special place of the butterfly in art, literature, advertising and science, and, latterly, our attempts to conserve them. Rainbow Dust takes in the controversy over collecting, the women who studied them and the curious details that lead to butterflies being feared as well as loved. This is a celebration of butterflies; one shot through with a sense of wonder but also of sorrow at what we are losing."

Buy p/b from amazon.co.uk

The Five-Year Butterfly Hunt: Five Summers Photographing Our Native Butterflies

Phil Hall

2016

"The author and his young daughter, who set off on a holiday in West Wales to observe whales and dolphins, stumble across the delights of Britain's native butterflies. Inspired, they start a quest to photograph all of the 58 breeding butterfly species in the UK, leading to an adventure that lasts five summers."

In Pursuit of Butterflies: A Fifty-year Affair

Matthew Oates

2015

"Matthew Oates has led a butterflying life. Naturalist, conservationist and passionate lover of poetry, he has devoted himself to these exalted creatures: to their observation, to singing their praises, and to ensuring their survival. Based on fifty years of detailed diaries, In Pursuit of Butterflies is the chronicle of this life. Oates leads the reader through a lifetime of butterflying, across the mountain tops, the peat bogs, sea cliffs, meadows, heaths, the chalk downs and great forests of the British Isles. Full of humour, zeal, digression, expertise and anecdote, this book provides a profound encounter with one of our great butterfly lovers, and with a half-century of butterflies in Britain."

Butterfly Gardening: How to Encourage Butterflies to Your Garden

Jenny Steel

2015

"This second guide in the 'Gardening with Nature Series' gives step by step advice on how to encourage butterflies to your garden. Jenny Steel describes the importance of providing shelter and avoiding the use of pesticides, with lists of suitable nectar and larval plants, and their maintenance."

Butterflies: A Complete Guide to Their Biology and Behaviour

Dick Vane-Wright

2015

"In Butterflies leading expert Dick Vane-Wright provides a complete introduction to the biology, natural history and classification of this major animal group. .... Using examples from around the world and eye-catching photographs, this accessible guide explores what it means to be a butterfly, from how the yellow birdwing finds a mate to why the African gaudy commodores produce adults of different colours. Fully revised and updated with new photographs and the latest reserach, this reformatted edition offers an overview of the biology and diversity of the major group of day-flying Lepidoptera."

A Handbook for Lepidopterists

Editor: Peter May

3rd edition

2014

"The last edition of the handbook (published in 1992) went out of print in 2005 and since then there have been huge advances in the study of Lepidoptera. This completely new edition includes many new topics, is almost twice the size of the last edition and contains many colour and black & white plates."

BB's Butterflies

Editor: Bryan Holden

2013

A collection of writings and illustrations from the work of BB (Denys Watkins-Pitchford). Subtitled: "A Celebration of One Man's Passion for the Purple Emperor."

Butterflies & Other Insects: My Enduring Impressions

Philip R.Ackery

2012

"A West London boy, born and bred, Phillip Ackery spent the first eighteen years of his life taking no interest in insects whatsoever. However, in 1965, to his own surprise, he was engaged as a Scientific Assistant in the Entomology Department of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. So began forty-one years associated with the Museum's collections, primarily the butterfly collection. To some extent, Butterflies & Other Insects reflects his areas of specialization – the milkweed butterflies, the passion-vine butterflies, the apollo butterflies, and the birdwing butterflies – together with other stories that imposed on his memory over four decades. As a new-comer to entomology in 1965, he became very aware of the absence of a collections-based introductory text, so to some extent Butterflies & Other Insects addresses the needs of his eighteen-year-old self."

Woodland Management for Butterflies and Moths: A Best Practice Guide

Susan A. Clarke, David G. Green, Nigel A. Bourn, Daniel J. Hoare

2011

"Butterflies and moths are disappearing from our countryside at an alarming rate, but nowhere more dramatically than in woodlands. Many species that were common only a few decades ago have become great rarities. Woodland Management for Butterflies and Moths is intended for anyone involved in the management of woodland. It provides guidance on the woodland habitat features needed by butterflies and moths, and how to create, maintain and improve them. Fifteen butterfly and moth species that are identified as "Lepidoptera of concern" (scarce and threatened lepidoptera for which woodlands are an important habitat in the UK) are given species accounts with distribution maps, and details about habitats and habitat management."

The Butterfly Isles: A Summer in Search of Our Emperors and Admirals

Patrick Barkham

2010

"Butterflies animate our summers but the 59 butterfly species of the British Isles can be surprisingly elusive. Some bask unseen at the top of trees in London parks; others lurk at the bottom of damp bogs in Scotland. A few survive for months while other ephemeral creatures only fly for three days. Several are virtually extinct. This bewitching book charts Patrick Barkham's quest to find all 59 - from the Adonis Blue to the Dingy Skipper - in one unforgettable summer. Barkham brings alive the extraordinary physical beauty and amusingly diverse character of our butterflies. He witnesses a swarming invasion of Painted Ladies, experiences the curse of the Purple Emperor, makes a euphoric sighting of an exceedingly rare migrant and as summer draws to a close, suffers from butterfly burnout. He meets some deeply knowledgeable and eccentric butterfly obsessives and reconnects with lovely, overlooked corners of our countryside. As he goes, he looks back at the butterfly collectors of the past and ahead to a future in which many of our butterflies will struggle to survive on an overcrowded and overheating island.

British Butterflies: A History in Books

David Dunbar

2010

"This book is the first to trace the 400-year history of books about British butterflies. From Thomas Moffett's 'The Theatre of Insects of 1634', through to the mass of modern-day guides and scientific works, some 600 titles are featured. The whole spectrum of butterfly-related literature is covered, from the earliest discovery and naming of butterflies in the British Isles to contemporary scientific works on ecology and conservation. The book is illustrated with reproductions of fine prints from old butterfly and insect books, many in colour, along with photographs showing styles of typical bindings and book design."

Ecology of Butterflies in Europe

Editor: Josef Settele, Tim Shreeve, Martin Konvicka, Hans Van Dyck

2009

"Due to the attractiveness of butterflies, and their usefulness as model systems for biological questions, there has been a considerable amount of material written on butterfly biology, largely in Europe. This book synthesizes all relevant and recent knowledge in the field, which is a must for those making use of this taxonomic group as a model system. It is divided into five major parts which deal with habitat use, population ecology and genetics, evolutionary ecology, distribution and phylogeny, and global change and conservation. There are growing numbers of scientific projects and networks in Europe in which the use of butterflies as tools and targets for conservation is central, and application of knowledge is closely related to European cultural landscapes. However, the chapters can also be applied to a wide geographic scope. Written by an international team of experts, this timely book is suitable for students, researchers and enthusiasts."

The Aurelian's Fireside Companion: An Entomological Anthology

Michael A. Salmon and Peter J. Edwards

2005

"A sequel to "The Aurelian Legacy", "The Aurelian's Fireside Companion" is an entertaining, humorous-at times provocative and eccentric-miscellany of articles and observations about butterflies and moths and the individuals who collected them. With many photos, drawings and colour plates, it should appeal to everyone interested in butterflies and moths."

A Butterfly Notebook

Douglas Hammersley

2003

"No one will fail to be won over by A Butterfly Notebook, Douglas Hammersley's personal odyssey into the world of the butterfly. Here you will find sixty different species, each lovingly described and painstakingly illustrated in full colour and to an astonishing level of detail. The 304 stunning illustrations are accompanied by the author's own descriptions. Over the twenty years of studying butterflies for this book, the author has observed and chronicled the many changes in the location and profusion of British Butterflies. A Butterfly Notebook preserves them all, in the hope that you too may one day encounter them in the field."

Butterfly Gardening: How to Encourage Butterflies to Visit and Breed in Your Garden

Jenny Steel

2003/2007

"This little book tells you eveything you need to know about making your garden a better habitat for butterflies. It includes lists of plants, butterfly garden maintenance and information about the species you could attract to your garden."

The Aurelian Legacy: British Butterflies and Their Collectors

Michael A. Salmon

University of California Press

2001

"This history of British butterflies is combined with a history of their collectors, without whose activities our knowledge of the identification, occurrence, distribution and variation would be much poorer. Liberally laced with contemporary quotations, and containing brief biographies and photographic portraits of about 100 early lepidopterists and their equipment, the volume presents 200 years of butterfly study, including the work of members of the Aurelian Society, founded in the early-18th century. Appendixes provide lists of the entomological societies, journals and transactions, and the collectors themselves, together with a check list of the British and Irish butterflies."

The Scientific Names of the British Lepidoptera: Their History and Meaning

A. Maitland Emmet

1991

"Includes notes on nomenclature, classification and conventions, terms and abbreviations, and a history of the scientific nomenclature of lepidoptera. The specific names are explained, together with the names of the genera, families and suborders to which they belong, giving Latin and Greek roots."

Butterflies

E.B. Ford

The New Naturalist 1

1945

"Dr Ford, the author of this fascinating volume on butterflies, was an enthusiastic butterfly collector in his youth. He was not only a professional biologist of great distinction but also brought his wide knowledge of genetics and evolution to bear on the problems arising out of his collecting. Thus he was able to see butterflies both as an absorbing hobby and as part of the great panorama of biology. The resultant book is an outstanding contribution to Natural History in the best sense of the term. Natural History is not something inferior to science – it is part of science, inviting an approach by way of field study. While, therefore, Dr Ford's book contains a somewhat higher proportion of scientific history and technical ideas than most books on Natural History, this for the great majority of amateurs will be a stimulus rather than an obstacle, and throughout the author has kept in mind the needs of butterfly collectors and of all those who love the country in the hope that it may increase their pleasure by widening the scope of their interests."