Anna Botsford Comstock

Anna Botsford Comstock is the best-selling author of The Handbook of Nature Study (1911) now in its 24th edition. Comstock was an early American artist and trained wood engraver known for illustrating her husband, John Henry Comstock, entomological textbooks including their first joint effort, The Manual for the Study of Insects (1885). Comstock worked with Liberty Hyde Bailey, John Walton Spencer, Alice McCloskey, Julia Rogers, and Ada Georgia as part of the department of Nature Study at Cornell University. Together they wrote nature study curricula to develop a curiosity for, and education of, the surrounding natural world. Comstock also was a proponent for conservationism by instilling a love and appreciation of the natural world around us.