<iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-K3L4M3" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">

Books

We all love butterflies — so why are we wiping them out?

Two new books — Rainbow Dust by Peter Marren and In Pursuit of Butterflies by Matthew Oates — celebrate the powerful myths surrounding these ravishing ephemera

1 August 2015

9:00 AM

1 August 2015

9:00 AM

Rainbow Dust: Three Centuries of Delight in British Butterflies Peter Marren

Square Peg, pp.320, £14.99, ISBN: 9780224098656

In Pursuit of Butterflies: A Fifty Year Affair Matthew Oates

Bloomsbury, pp.480, £18.99, ISBN: 9781472924506

Last month, at Edinburgh School of Art, I was interested to come across a student who’d chosen Marlowe’s Dr Faustus as her end-of-year degree project. In the wonderful stage costume she’d designed for its central figure were three gloriously embroidered butterflies fluttering around his hat. Bats, yes, moths, maybe, but what exactly was the significance of butterflies to a man bound for subterranean hell? The answer is in Rainbow Dust, Peter Marren’s superbly distilled statement on our national obsession with butterflies.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Subscribe for just $2 a week

Try a month of The Spectator Australia absolutely free and without commitment. Not only that but – if you choose to continue – you’ll pay just $2 a week for your first year.

  • Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app
  • The weekly edition on the Spectator Australia app
  • Spectator podcasts and newsletters
  • Full access to spectator.co.uk
Or

Unlock this article

REGISTER

'Rainbow Dust', £12.99 and 'In Pursuit of Butterflies', £15.99 available from the Spectator Bookshop,  Tel: 08430 600033.

Mark Cocker’s books include A Tiger in the Sand: Selected Writings on Nature, Crow Country and (with Richard Mabey) Birds Britannica.

You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it. Try your first month for free, then just $2 a week for the remainder of your first year.


Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator Australia readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Close