I read the 1819 Dublin edition, but I note from WorldCat that the book appears to have been first published in 1818 in London, and it also had an Edinburgh edition. One library notes that it was "based on John Aikin's Calendar of Nature", but beyond that there is no hint of who the anonymous author might be. It is literate enough, and quite interesting, although it becomes less and less disciplined towards the end of the year, pulling in anecdotal digressions about amazing survivals in natural disasters that are less and less related to the month in hand. The focus appears to be largely on the natural history of the southern part of England, but (again towards the end) there was at least one reference to "here" which clearly referred to Ireland. This makes me wonder if the regional publishers introduced variants. In any case, I smiled over the careful observation of the order in which the flowers bloom, frowned over the glowing description of the hunt, and squinted hard at the not terribly well printed and rather worn woodcuts which adorned each month's chapter. Such fun to find this kind of volume sitting in the stacks of a University library waiting to be rediscovered. However, though there is plentiful quotation from the poets (mostly Thomson's The Seasons, as you'd expect), I hardly think it belongs in the literature section!
