Jean-Henri Fabre

Jean-Henri Fabre (1823–1915) was a French entomologist and writer. Born into a poor family in the Rouergue, he trained as a schoolteacher, taught for twenty years in Corsica and Avignon and supported himself by writing science textbooks until, at fifty-six, he bought a small plot at Sérignan in Provence, the harmas, where he observed insects for the rest of his life. His Souvenirs entomologiques, published in ten volumes between 1879 and 1907, describe the instincts of wasps, bees, beetles and spiders from patient fieldwork, in prose that earned him the admiration of Darwin, Maeterlinck and Hugo. His books for children, including The Story-Book of Science, were widely translated.