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Jean Henri Fabre

 
French Literature Companion: Jean-Henri Fabre
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Fabre, Jean-Henri (1823-1915). French entomologist. The son of a peasant, he became a teacher and scientist, publishing numerous textbooks. He is remembered for his Souvenirs entomologiques (10 vols., 1879-1907), of which a best-selling selection was published in 1910 as La Vie des insectes. Based on his observations and experiments in Provence, it describes in great detail the behaviour of insect species, showing the infinite variety of life in a few acres of land. The flowery style and anthropomorphic presentation may raise a smile today, but the work is a treasure-house of precise observation.

[Peter France]

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Columbia Encyclopedia: Jean Henri Fabre
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Fabre, Jean Henri (zhäN äNrē' fä'brə), 1823-1915, French entomologist and author. He is known for his observations on insects and his study of their behavior. Fabre demonstrated the importance of instinct among insects. He taught until 1870 at Carpentras, Ajaccio, and Avignon, wrote works on popular science at Orange (1870-79), then retired to nearby Sérignan, where he devoted himself to entomological studies. Fabre worked almost exclusively from nature, and his exquisite literary style brought him as much renown as his observations. His principal work is Souvenirs entomologiques (10 vol., 1879-1907); English translations of selections from this work include The Life of the Spider (1912), The Marvels of the Insect World (1938), and The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre (ed. with commentary and biographical notes by E. W. Teale, 1949).

Bibliography

See studies on Fabre by Augustin Fabre (tr., 2d ed. 1921), P. F. Bicknell (1923), and G. V. Legros (1971).

Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia: Pierre Jean Fabre
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Home > Library > Religion & Spirituality > Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia
(ca. 1590-1650)

French alchemist, a native of Castelnaudary in Languedoc. Fabre was a doctor of medicine and was renowned in his own time as a scholar of chemistry, a subject on which he compiled several treatises. Because he practiced in Montepellier, he has been confused with a painter named Fabre who was born in Montepellier and gave his name to the Musée Fabre in that town.

There is no evidence that Pierre Jean Fabre had any practical success in the field of alchemy, but he wrote numerous works dealing with that topic.

Of these the most important are Alchimista Christianus and Hercules Piochymicus, both published at Toulouse, the first in 1632. In the latter he maintains that the mythological "labors of Hercules" are allegories, embodying the arcana of hermetic philosophy. The philosophers' stone, he declares complacently, may be found in all compounded circumstances and is formed of salt, mercury, and sulphur.

Wikipedia: Jean Henri Fabre
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Jean Henri Fabre

Jean Henri Fabre
Born December 22, 1823 (1823-12-22)
Saint-Léons
Died October 11, 1915 (1915-10-12)
Nationality French
Fields entomology

Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre (December 22, 1823 - October 11, 1915) was a French entomologist and author.

Contents

Life

Fabre was born in Saint-Léons in Aveyron, France. Fabre was largely an autodidact, owing to the poverty of his family. Nevertheless, he acquired a primary teaching certificate at the young age of 19 and began teaching in Carpentras whilst pursuing further studies. In 1849 he was appointed to a teaching post in Ajaccio (Corsica), then in 1849 moved on to the lycée in Avignon.

Fabre went on to accomplish many scholarly achievements. He was a popular teacher, physicist, chemist and botanist. However, he is probably best known for his findings in the field of entomology, the study of insects, and is considered by many to be the father of modern entomology. Much of his enduring popularity is due to his marvelous teaching ability and his manner of writing about the lives of insects in biographical form, which he preferred to a clinically detached, journalistic mode of recording. In doing so he combined what he called "my passion for scientific truth" with keen observations and an engaging, colloquial style of writing. Fabre noted:

Others again have reproached me with my style, which has not the solemnity, nay, better, the dryness of the schools. They fear lest a page that is read without fatigue should not always be the expression of the truth. Were I to take their word for it, we are profound only on condition of being obscure.

Over the years he wrote a series of texts on insects and arachnids that are collectively known as the Souvenirs Entomologiques. Fabre's influence is felt in the later works of fellow naturalist Charles Darwin, who called Fabre "an inimitable observer". Fabre, however, rejected Darwin's theory of evolution; on the other hand he was not a Biblical creationist either but assumed a saltationist origin of biodiversity.

In one of Fabre's most famous experiments, he arranged processionary caterpillars to form a continuous loop around the edge of a pot. As each caterpillar instinctively followed the silken trail of the caterpillars in front of it, the group moved around in a circle for seven days.[1]

Jean-Henri Fabre's last home and office, the Harmas de Fabre in Provence stands today as a museum devoted to his life and works.

The site of his birth, at St Léons, near Millau is now the site of Micropolis, a tourist attraction dedicated to popularising entomology and a museum on his life.

Works

Jean Henri Fabre by Nadar.
  • Scène de la vie des insectes
  • Chimie agricole (textbook) (1862)
  • La Terre (Jean Henri Fabre)|La Terre (1865)
  • Le Ciel (textbook) (1867) - Scanned text on Gallica
  • Catalogue des « Insectes Coléoptères observés aux environs d'Avignon » (1870)
  • Les Ravageurs (1870)
  • Les Auxiliaires (1873)
  • Aurore (textbook) (1874) Scanned text on Gallica
  • Botanique (textbook) (1874)
  • L'Industrie (textbook) (1875)
  • Les Serviteurs (textbook) (1875)
  • Sphériacées du Vaucluse (1878)
  • Souvenirs entomologiques – 1st series (1891) – (1879) – Scanned text on Gallica
  • Etude sur les moeurs des Halictes (1879)
  • Le Livre des Champs (1879)
  • Lectures sur la Botanique (1881)
  • Nouveaux souvenirs entomologiques – 2nd series (1882) – Scanned text on Gallica
  • Lectures sur la Zoologie (1882)
  • Zoologie (Jean Henri Fabre)|Zoologie (textbook) (1884)
  • Souvenirs entomologiques – 3rd series (1886) – Scanned text on Gallica
  • Histoire naturelles (textbook) (1889)
  • Souvenirs entomologiques – 4th series (1891) – Scanned text on Gallica
  • La plante : leçons à mon fils sur la botanique (livre scolaire) (1892) – Scanned text on Gallica
  • Souvenirs entomologiques – 5th series (1897) – Scanned text on Gallica
  • Souvenirs entomologiques – 6th series (1900) – Scanned text on Gallica
  • Souvenirs entomologiques – 7th series (1901) – Scanned text on Gallica
  • Souvenirs entomologiques – 8th series (1903)
  • Souvenirs entomologiques – 9th series (1905)
  • Souvenirs entomologiques – 10th series (1909)
  • Fabre's Book of Insects retold from Alexander Teixeira de Mattos' translation of Fabre's Souvenirs entomologiques Scanned book
  • Oubreto Provençalo dou Felibre di Tavan (1909) Text on Jean-Henri Fabre, e-museum
  • La Vie des insectes (1910)
  • Mœurs des insectes (1911)
  • Les Merveilles de l'instinct chez les insectes (1913)
  • Le monde merveilleux des insectes (1921)
  • Poésie françaises et provençales (1925) (final edition)
  • La Vie des araignées (1928)
  • Bramble-Bees and Others Scanned book, Project Gutenberg Full Text
  • The Life of the Grasshopper. Dodd, Mead, and company, 1917. ASIN B00085HYR4
  • The Life of the Caterpillar. Dodd, Mead, 1919. ASIN B00089FB2A
  • Field, Forest, and Farm: Things interesting to young nature lovers, including some matters of moment to gardeners and fruit-growers. The Century Company, 1919. ASIN B00085PDU4
  • This Earth is Ours: Talks about Mountains and Rivers, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Geysers & Other Things. Albert & Charles Boni, 1923. ASIN B000EHLE22
  • The Life of The Scorpion. University Press of the Pacific, 2002 (reprinted from the 1923 edition). ISBN 0-89875-842-4
  • The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles. Dodd, Mead, 1919. ASIN B000882F2K
  • The Mason Bees (Translated) Garden City, 1925. ASIN B00086XXU0; Reprinted in 2004 by Kessinger Publishing; ISBN 1417916761; ISBN 978-1417916764 Scanned book, Project Gutenberg Full Text
  • Curiosities of Science. The Century Company, 1927. ASIN B00086KVBE
  • The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre. Introduction and Interpretive Comments by Edwin Way Teale; Foreword to 1991 edition by Gerald Durrell. Published by Dodd, Mead in 1949; Reprinted by Beacon Press in 1991; ISBN 0-8070-8513-8
  • The Life of the Spider (Translated) Preface by Maurice Maeterlinck; Introduction by John K. Terres. Published by Horizon Press, 1971; ISBN 0-8180-1705-8 (First published by Dodd, Mead, and company in 1913, ASIN B00085D6P8) Scanned book, Project Gutenberg Full Text
  • The Life of the Fly. (Translated) Fredonia Books, 2001. ISBN 1589630262; ISBN 978-1589630260 Scanned book
  • The Hunting Wasps. University Press of the Pacific, 2002. ISBN 1410200078; ISBN 978-1410200075
  • More Hunting Wasps Scanned book Project Gutenberg Full Text
  • The Wonders of Instinct: Chapters in the Psychology of Insects. University Press of the Pacific, 2002. ISBN 0898757681; ISBN 978-0898757682 Scanned book, Project Gutenberg Full Text
  • Social Life in the Insect World Scanned book, Project Gutenberg Full Text
  • Insect life Scanned book

Collection

Fabre's insect collection is in Musée Requien Avignon.

Biographies

  • G.V. Legros, (Bernard Miall, translator), Fabre, Poet of Science. T. Fisher Unwin, 1913. (Reprinted by University Press of the Pacific, 2002, ISBN 0898759455; ISBN 978-0898759457) Scanned book
  • E.L. Bouvier, The Life and Work of J.H. Fabre. Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1916, pages 587-597.
  • Augustin Fabre, The Life of Jean Henri Fabre. Dodd, Mead, 1921. Scanned version on the Internet Archive
  • Percy F. Bicknell, The Human Side of Fabre. The Century Company, 1923.

Tribute

References

  1. ^ Fabre, The Life of the Caterpillar.
  2. ^ Fabre commemorative postage stamp

External links

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French Literature Companion. The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Copyright © 2001 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jean Henri Fabre".  Read more