Featured on PDR in the collection The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents (1658)

“Never was there so compleate a History of the Creatures as this since the daies of Solomon, who writ the Story of Beasts and Creeping things”, claims John Rowland in his dedicatory epistle to Edward Topsell’s 1658 History, which brings together his earlier work on four-footed beasts (1607) and serpents (1608). Published more than thirty years after its author’s death and considered the first major illustrated work on animals printed in English, this epic treatise on zoology exceeds a thousand pages, exploring ancient and fantastic tales of real animals, as well as those at the more legendary end of the spectrum, including the “Hydra” (with two claws, a curled serpent’s tail, and seven small mammalian heads), the “Lamia” (with a cat-like body and woman’s face…