Good Morning Lowcountry

Catesby returns

On Monday night, "The Curious Mr. Catesby," a documentary film, will have its North American premiere at Sottile Theater as a fundraiser ($100 a ticket) for the Friends of the Library at the College of Charleston and the Catesby Commemorative Trust.

The Mr. Catesby in question is English explorer, botanist, naturalist and artist Mark Catesby who documented the birds, fish, insects, reptiles, amphibians and mammals of the 18th-century New World.

Catesby traveled from Virginia to the Bahamas. He settled in Charles Towne in 1722, returned to England in 1726 and published his "Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands" between 1731 and 1743.

The book was a favorite in Charleston drawing rooms of the 18th century, just as Audubon's "Birds of America" was 100 years later.

Working a century before John James Audubon, the mysterious Mr. Catesby attained none of the latter artist's fame or commercial success.

Cynthia Neal of Nashville, Tenn., researched Catesby for years before starting and directing the film project. She and David Elliott of Kiawah Island produced it. The film's world premiere was at The Royal Society in London last fall.

College of Charleston will take its two volumes of Catesby's "Natural History" to the film screening and turn the pages for attendees of a champagne reception. "We'll have white gloves," said Marie Ferrara, head of special collections at the Addlestone Library.

The college's books are from the third edition (1771). Of the fewer than 200 first editions of Catesby's "Natural History" printed, two are in Charleston ... one at The Charleston Museum and one at Middleton Place.

The college's Catesby books were part of a gift from the late John Henry Dick of Dixie Plantation in Hollywood who was an ornithologist, artist, researcher and collector of rare books.

Born in New York, Dick died in 1995.

"His mother was Madeleine Force Dick, widow of John Jacob Astor who perished on the Titanic," Ferrara said. "She purchased Dixie unseen and he came in 1947."

His collection of rare bird books was extensive, Ferrara said. "We have four Audubon folios of 'Birds of America,' also 'Birds of North America,' and we have John Gould stuff too. We have several Alexander Wilson volumes of 'American Ornithology.' It's an incredible collection.

"He had a bird pen and raised birds, so he was surrounded with birds in art and in life. He had waterfowl and pheasants and cranes and pea fowl that sort of roamed Dixie when he was there."

Addlestone Library has Dick's photographs, slides (27,000 of them), lectures, books, the books he wrote and illustrated, and his scrapbook. Dixie Plantation is owned by the College of Charleston Foundation.

Dick's collection of bird skins, which he used as research for his illustrations, is at The Charleston Museum, Ferrara said.

Curators turning the pages of "Natural History" on Monday night will focus on Carolina species that Catesby recorded for the first time, Ferrara said.

Those included the pied-bill dopchick, the goatsucker of Carolina, the fox colored thrush, the swallow-tail hawk, the painted finch, the blue linnet, the large lark and the yellow-bellied woodpecker.

Period book cradles will be borrowed from The Charleston Museum.

For tickets to the premiere (it's at 6:30 p.m.), call Jenny Fowler at 953-5530.

GMLc

Call 937-5564. Write gmlc@postandcourier.com. Find the blog at gmlc.typepad.com.