Baker, J. A. The Peregrine.

Baker, J. A. The Peregrine. London: Collins, 1967. Octavo. Original black boards, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. Spine rolled, ends of spine bumped, faint toning in the margins and a minor crease affecting some of the early leaves. A very good copy in the lightly rubbed jacket with some small brown marks along the edges of the spine panel, which is faded. First edition, first impression of this masterpiece of 20th-century nature writing, cited by Ted Hughes, Andrew Motion, Werner Herzog, and many others as one of the most important works of its kind.

Author J. A. Baker (1926-1987) was a librarian who spent ten years tracking peregrine falcons in coastal Essex during the 1950s and 60s. This, the first of his two published works, distills his observations of the birds and their changing habitat into a lyrical account of a single year, beginning in autumn with the birds' migration from Scandinavia and ending with their return north in spring.