author

Montagu Browne

1837–1923

Best known for making taxidermy understandable to amateurs, this Victorian naturalist wrote practical, detailed books that opened museum work and specimen preparation to a wider public. His writing blends hands-on instruction with the curiosity of a lifelong observer of animals and local natural history.

1 Audiobook

Practical taxidermy : a manual of instruction to the amateur in collecting, preserving, and setting up natural history specimens of all kinds. To which is added a chapter upon the pictorial arrangement of museums. With additional instructions in modelling and artistic taxidermy.

Practical taxidermy : a manual of instruction to the amateur in collecting, preserving, and setting up natural history specimens of all kinds. To which is added a chapter upon the pictorial arrangement of museums. With additional instructions in modelling and artistic taxidermy.

by Montagu Browne

About the author

Active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Montagu Browne was an English taxidermist, naturalist, and author. He is closely associated with Leicester, where he served as curator of the Town Museum, and his books show the mix of craft knowledge and scientific interest that shaped many public museums of his time.

His best-known work is Practical Taxidermy (1884), a manual written for beginners as well as serious enthusiasts. He also wrote on regional wildlife and geology, including The Vertebrate Animals of Leicestershire and Rutland, showing that his interests reached beyond technique into field observation and the study of local nature.

Today, Browne is remembered less as a literary figure than as a skilled explainer of natural history practice. For listeners interested in Victorian science, museums, or the history of collecting, his work offers a vivid glimpse of how knowledge was gathered, preserved, and shared.