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One significant new direction in my collection since A History of Fish debuted is my effort to collect books in less-common languages and from non-Western authors. This set, purchased from a bookseller in Japan, includes the complete fish section of…

In addition to the diversity of perspectives that non-Western books bring to my collection, the physical books themselves reveal differing characteristics of book-making around the world. These Japanese books are bound by punching holesthrough the…

Illustrators and printers have struggled with how best to represent the vibrant colours and unusual shapes of fish on the page. The invention of chromolithography presented a new way to print in colour, and this technique was quickly used to print…

The decorative title page of Strack’s work credits “Arnz & Co” as the lithographers.

This page from Strack’s Naturgeschichte in Bildern mit erläuterndem [1826] illustrates three species of fish grouped together because of their unusual body shapes.

Colourful tropical fish such as these from Strack’s Naturgeschichte in Bildern mit erläuterndem [1826] were popular subjects in colour-plate books about fish.

Colourful tropical fish such as these from Strack’s Naturgeschichte in Bildern mit erläuterndem [1826] were popular subjects in colour-plate books about fish.

Colourful tropical fish such as these from Strack’s Naturgeschichte in Bildern mit erläuterndem [1826] were popular subjects in colour-plate books about fish.

Renard’s Poissons, Ecrevisses et Crabes is one of the most significant books on fish. It is frequently cited as the first book about fish to be issued from the publisher with coloured plates and is well-known among natural history collectors for…

This plate from my fragmentary copy of Renard’s Poissons [1754] illustrates four species of tropical fish from the Indonesian archipelago.