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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What guides a wasp to hunt, a beetle to roll dung, or a spider to spin its web?
In Fabre's Book of Insects, Jean-Henri Fabre turns patient watching into small dramas. This collection draws from his Souvenirs Entomologiques, following wasps, beetles, spiders, bees and moths as they hunt, build and raise their young. The action unfolds among living creatures in the fields and in his walled garden in Provence.
Fabre watches closely, then uses simple experiments to test what he sees. A female wasp digs a burrow and seeks prey for her young. A sacred beetle shapes and rolls its ball of dung. Behind these daily tasks lies his central question: how much comes from instinct, and how much from thought?
What you’ll discover
- Life beyond the specimen Follow Fabre into the field, where living animals reveal more than pinned bodies.
- The hunting wasp's work Watch a solitary female prepare a burrow and find food for her young.
- A beetle's patient labour See the sacred beetle shape dung and push it backward across the ground.
- Instinct put to the test Explore how Fabre interrupts familiar routines to probe the limits of animal behaviour.
- Webs and wandering spiders Look closely at spiders' webs and the ways young spiders travel.
Who will love it
Curious readers of any age who enjoy backyard wildlife, experiments and warm, conversational writing will love this book. It also suits gardeners, teachers and parents of young bug hunters.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Nearby life becomes a field of discovery
- The beetle builds for different needs
- The cicada deserves a different story
- The glow-worm hunts with quiet precision
- Expert building does not mean understanding
- Small creatures show devoted parental care
- Instinct prepares for an unseen future
- The cricket builds and sings
- Observation puts familiar beliefs to the test
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Fabre's Book of Insects
A scruffy patch of Provence stone and thistle fills with wasps, beetles and singers while one man watches closely.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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In short
What would you do if you spent forty years dreaming of a patch of barren ground, and then finally owned it? Jean-Henri Fabre filled it with notebooks, glass jars and endless patience.
Fabre's Book of Insects at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 5 min3 h 15 min fast, 4 h 50 min slow
- Length
- 58,100 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A thistle patch becomes a laboratory
Fabre opens with himself. His grandparents were country people who hardly read, so he cannot trace his gift for nature to his family. He had no teacher, often no books, and one aim: to add a few pages to the history of insects.
His love began in childhood. He found a stonechat's nest with six blue eggs, took one and planned to steal the young birds later. A priest told him that robbing a mother of all her young was cruel, and that every bird has a name. That talk set him asking what his friends in the woods were called.
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
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Cite this edition
Fabre, Jean-Henri. Fabre's Book of Insects. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/fabres-book-of-insects.
Fabre, J.-H. (2026). Fabre's book of insects. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/fabres-book-of-insects
Fabre, Jean-Henri. Fabre's Book of Insects. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/fabres-book-of-insects.
@book{fabre2026fabres,
author = {Fabre, Jean-Henri},
title = {Fabre's Book of Insects},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/fabres-book-of-insects}
}
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What is Fabre's Book of Insects about?
It collects chapters from Fabre's lifelong insect studies, including the sacred beetle, cicada, mantis, glow-worm, wasps, cricket and locust. Each chapter tells what he saw and how he tested it, with his thoughts on instinct.
Who was Jean-Henri Fabre?
Fabre was a French schoolteacher and self-taught naturalist who died in 1915. He is remembered for patient field observation and experiments with insects, and for writing about them in a warm, direct, lively voice.
Is Fabre's Book of Insects a true account?
Yes, it describes real observations and experiments in southern France, mostly written in the late nineteenth century. Some explanations reflect the science of his time, but the habits he watched are drawn from his own notes.
The author
Jean-Henri Fabre
1823–1915 · French entomologist and author
Jean-Henri Fabre was a French naturalist and entomologist, often called the "Homer of the insects" for turning patient observation into literature. The Story Book of Science shows his rare gift for making the natural world thrilling to young readers.
More by Jean-Henri Fabre
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