The Diary of a Bird Freely Translated into Human Language.

H. D. Minot.

The Diary of a Bird Freely Translated into Human Language.

Boston:

A. Williams,

1800.

Accompanied by electrotype blocks and stereotypes plates. Gift of the Massachusetts Historical Society through the good offices of Jeremy Dibbell.

This book, told from the perspective of a black-throated green warbler, advocates for more stringent legislation to protect game birds, waterfowl, and other classes of birds. Its author, Henry Davis Minot, likely funded the publication. The book’s two woodcuts (one of the warbler, the other of an owl) were electrotyped in Boston and then stereotyped alongside the text. If you examine the surface of the stereotype plates, you can see the residual impressions of the nails used to affix the metal electrotypes to their wooden bases.

From the collection of Rare Book School