1,300 Beautiful Wildlife Illustrations from the 19th Century Now Restored

# Explore 1,300+ Beautiful Wildlife Illustrations from the 19th Century, Now Restored and Available Online Source: [https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/explore-1300-beautiful-wildlife-illustrations-from-the-19th-century.html](https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/explore-1300-beautiful-wildlife-illustrations-from-the-19th-century.html)  Today, if you want to know about any of the flo­ra or fau­na that sur­round us, you have only to look it up online\. After you get your fill of knowl­edge, you can decide whether or not you want to ven­ture out into the world and see your object of inter­est in its nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment \(or a con­trolled sim­u­la­tion there­of\)\. In the Vic­to­ri­an era, things worked a bit dif­fer­ent­ly\. Ide­al­ly, you’d have grown up in a house­hold, or at least had access to an insti­tu­tion, with the com­plete set of*The Nat­u­ral­ist’s Library*, a series of more than 40 vol­umes on every­thing from the birds and the bees to the quadrupeds and the mar­su­pi­alia\. Print­ed in a rel­a­tive­ly small for­mat and priced at six shillings each, they brought the intel­lec­tu­al fruits of the nat­u­ral­ist’s enter­prise clos­er to the reach of the every­man than ever before\.  While these books offered a good deal of infor­ma­tive text, includ­ing mem­oirs from var­i­ous famous nat­u­ral­ists of the time, their imme­di­ate attrac­tion had more to do with their glo­ri­ous illus­tra­tions, in which col­ored exam­ples of each species popped right out of its black\-and\-white habi­tat\. These more than 1,300 col­or plates, some of the finest that could be seen in any pub­li­ca­tion of sim­i­lar scale in the mid\-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, pre­sent­ed an attrac­tive project to the design­er[Nicholas Rougeux](https://www.c82.net/), whose work we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture\. Hav­ing already restored and cre­at­ed dig­i­tal ver­sions of Euclid­’s[*Ele­ments*](https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/a-beautifully-designed-edition-of-euclids-elements.html), Pierre\-Joseph Red­outé’s[*Les Ros­es*and*Les Lil­i­acées*](https://www.openculture.com/?p=1120828), Eliz­a­beth Twin­ing’s[*Illus­tra­tions of the Nat­ur­al Orders of Plants*](https://www.openculture.com/2021/01/interactive-illustrations-of-the-natural-orders-of-plants.html), and Daniel Berke­ley Updike’s[*Print­ing Types*](https://www.openculture.com/?p=1124807), among oth­er books, he’s now put online[a com­plete repro­duc­tion of the*Nat­u­ral­ist’s Library*](https://www.c82.net/naturalists-library/)— with, as usu­al,[a blog post about the painstak­ing restora­tion and dig­i­tal re\-cre­ation process](https://www.c82.net/blog/making-of-naturalists-library)\.  This time, Rougeux has includ­ed a sec­tion about his use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, which actu­al­ly did its part to bring*The Nat­u­ral­ist’s Library*to his atten­tion in the first place\. Not only did AI tools then help him unearth need­ed sources and fill in visu­al gaps, they also came in handy when he was brain­storm­ing cov­er con­cepts for a print­ed ver­sion\. Though Rougeux’s restora­tion is pri­mar­i­ly[a web site, free to all to explore](https://www.c82.net/naturalists-library/), you can also buy your own hand­some, large\-for­mat phys­i­cal copy of[*Plates of the Nat­u­ral­ist’s Library*](https://www.c82.net/naturalists-library/shop/book)for $295\.11 USD\.  Eas­i­er on the wal­let is the[series of posters](https://www.c82.net/naturalists-library/shop)he’s made with the same illus­tra­tions, each of which presents one of these cat­e­gories of crea­tures great or small at a glance\. The orig­i­nal*Nat­u­ral­ist’s Library*inspired gen­er­a­tions to ded­i­cate them­selves to under­stand­ing the nat­ur­al world; these new ver­sions, whether in print,[online](https://www.c82.net/naturalists-library/), or on the wall, will no doubt encour­age the enthu­si­asm of more than a few bud­ding nat­u­ral­ists in the gen­er­a­tions to come\. Vis­it the[repro­duc­tion of the*Nat­u­ral­ist’s Library*](https://www.c82.net/naturalists-library/)[here](https://www.c82.net/naturalists-library/)\.  **Relat­ed Con­tent:** [A Lav­ish­ly Illus­trat­ed Cat­a­log of All Hum­ming­bird Species Known in the 19th Cen­tu­ry Gets Restored & Put Online](https://www.openculture.com/2023/10/a-lavishly-illustrated-catalog-of-all-hummingbird-species-known-in-the-19th-century-gets-restored-put-online.html) [Behold an Inter­ac­tive Online Edi­tion of Eliz­a­beth Twining’s*Illus­tra­tions of the Nat­ur­al Orders of Plants*\(1868\)](https://www.openculture.com/2021/01/interactive-illustrations-of-the-natural-orders-of-plants.html) [Ernst Haeckel’s Sub­lime Draw­ings of Flo­ra & Fau­na: The Beau­ti­ful Sci­en­tif­ic Draw­ings That Influ­enced Europe’s Art Nou­veau Move­ment \(1889\)](https://www.openculture.com/2025/09/ernst-haeckels-sublime-drawings-of-flora-1889.html) [300,000 Won­drous Nature Illus­tra­tions Put Online by The Bio­di­ver­si­ty Her­itage Library](https://www.openculture.com/2026/01/300000-wondrous-nature-illustrations-by-the-biodiversity-heritage-library.html) [Explore a New Archive of 2,200 His­tor­i­cal Wildlife Illus­tra­tions \(1916–1965\): Cour­tesy of The Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety](https://www.openculture.com/2021/03/explore-a-new-archive-of-2200-historical-wildlife-illustrations.html) [Explore an Inter­ac­tive, Online Ver­sion of the Beau­ti­ful­ly Illus­trat­ed, 200\-Year\-Old*British & Exot­ic Min­er­al­o­gy*](https://www.openculture.com/2020/08/online-version-of-the-british-exotic-mineralogy.html) *Based in Seoul,**[Col­in](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)**[M](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)**[a](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)**[rshall](http://blog.colinmarshall.org/)writes and broad­cas**ts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture\. He’s the author of the newslet­ter*[Books on Cities](https://colinmarshall.substack.com/)*as well as the books*[한국 요약 금지](https://product.kyobobook.co.kr/detail/S000212263515)*\(No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea\) and*[Kore­an Newtro](https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Newtro-Where-Youth-Tradition/dp/156591533X)*\.**Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at[@colinm](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)**[a](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)**[rshall](https://twitter.com/#%21/colinmarshall)\.*