Burgess Nature Books

How I Discovered Burgess

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I learned about Thornton W. Burgess through the Charlotte Mason homeschooling community, particularly through Autumn Kern and The Commonplace. I first learned about these four larger Burgess nature-study books through one of her bookshelf tours. That introduced me to this particular group of books and made me want copies for our own home library.

Burgess in Our Family

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Before reading these larger nature books, I began reading Burgess’s bedtime-story books to my daughters. We started with Old Mother West Wind. The chapters work beautifully as bedtime stories because each is essentially a self-contained animal adventure.

Burgess was a naturalist, so even though the stories are fictional and anthropomorphic, the animals retain characteristics and behaviors recognizable from the actual animals. We enjoyed them enough that I began collecting many of Burgess’s animal-specific bedtime-story books as well.

There is also a documented Beatrix Potter connection, though it is a little different from how I first remembered it. Burgess explained that when he began writing stories for his young son, the boy already knew Potter’s Peter Rabbit and would not accept another name for the rabbit in his father’s stories. Burgess later wrote, “When I began writing stories for my own small boy, a rabbit was already Peter and there was no changing the name.” The Library of Congress traces that history here.

For our family, the bedtime stories are effectively an introduction to the natural world. The children meet the animals first as characters. Later, I hope these four larger nature books can deepen that familiarity into genuine curiosity about birds, animals, flowers, seashore life, and nature.

Why I Wanted These Four Books

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I have always loved nature and want to share that love with my daughters. My hope is that Burgess’s ability to make animals memorable as characters helps create affection and curiosity for the natural world.

I bought these four larger books anticipating reading them with my daughters when they are older. For now, we are still enjoying Old Mother West Wind and the animal-specific Burgess bedtime-story books. These four books are waiting for a later stage of our reading life.

Building the Collection

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The books were not all acquired together. I had already bought The Burgess Seashore Book for Children on eBay. At the time, I believe it was the only copy of the edition I wanted that I could find online. I had also acquired The Burgess Animal Book for Children roughly a week before the antique-store discovery.

Then, in August 2025, my wife and I went on a weekend date to a local antique store. While browsing, I found something I absolutely did not expect: all four Burgess nature books were sitting together on a shelf.

I had specifically been hunting these books and wanted the old editions with gold spine lettering, so seeing the complete group sitting together in an antique store was an extraordinary “found in the wild” moment. I grabbed all four books immediately and carried them to the front desk.

The seller wasn’t there, and for a moment I was basically ready to buy the entire group. Unfortunately, the seller clearly knew what he had and had priced the books obnoxiously high. Since I already owned the Seashore Book and Animal Book, I couldn’t justify buying duplicate copies simply because finding all four together was so much fun.

Instead, I bought the two volumes I was still missing: The Burgess Bird Book for Children and The Burgess Flower Book for Children. I believe I paid approximately $75 for the Bird Book. That antique-store discovery completed my four-volume collection.

Why These Editions

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I intentionally sought older hardcover copies. I think these editions are beautiful. I particularly wanted copies with the old cloth bindings and gold lettering on their spines.

But there is also a larger reason I prefer old books when practical. I want the physical books in our home to communicate something to my daughters: ideas, stories, craftsmanship, and old things can be worth preserving. Some books should feel like treasures.

These Burgess volumes are among those “treasure books” in our home library. The older bindings, illustrations, typography, paper, wear, and evidence of age are part of what I love about them. They really don’t make many books like this anymore.

On the Shelf

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The four volumes live together on the top shelf alongside other antique children’s literature. Kept side by side, their cloth bindings and gold-lettered spines make the collection visible as a family of physical objects—not merely four titles that happen to share an author.