The History of Four-footed Beasts

Edward Topsell, History of Four-footed Beasts, 1658

Edward Topsell was not a natural historia, nor an artist, but a cleric who was gifted in translation. For Topsell being a non-scholar figure in the field of natural history, his credibility is rather not as reliable as that of Gesner. As the period being a period of curiosity, and therefore, people of the time was highly interested in studies done by their ancesotors and, as a result, welcomed the translated version of Gesner's study on nature and animals. Therefore, Topsell lacks his originality. (note1) It is mentioned by Raven that Topsell's interest was not rooted in a true study of order and structure of nature but in a study of the study of nature, which means that he, and the people of the time, were curious about how their ancestors studied nature and how their interst in nature came out as a tangible output. 

Topsell's The History of Four-footed Beasts contains every illustration that is in Gesner's Historia Animalium, but with shortened texts. Topsell is a cleric, dedicated extensively to God, and Christianity, which is well reflected in his translated book. Although it is hard to conceive Topsell's book as the one with pure originality and of a product of Topsell's study of nature and animals, the accessibility to the study of natural history provided by to English readers and scholars is worth to be credited to Topsell. 

Notes

note 1: Topsell is not considered as a scholar with originality nor as an intellectual albeit his gifted ability of translation worth to notice. Raven, Charles E. English Naturalists from Neckam to Ray; a Study of the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge: U, 1947. Print.