Whilst we might wonder why it has taken so long for William Smith’s historically important writings to become available again, we should just be very grateful that this has now happened with the publication of William Smith’s Fossils Reunited. In this the 250th anniversary of Smith’s birth and the bicentenary year of Smith’s annus horribilis—his incarceration for debt in 1819—his two most important works, Strata Identified by Organized Fossils and A Stratigraphical System of Organized Fossils etc. have been republished together and with considerable ‘added value’. For the latter we have to thank the editor, Peter Wigley, his team and the publishers for a book with such high production values and reasonable price. A key element to the success of this new edition is the identification of Smith’s original fossils, and the updating of their taxonomy and excellent photographic reproduction by Jill Darell and Diana Clements of the Natural History Museum. The tragedy is that it took Smith’s financial difficulties, bankruptcy and sale of his fossil collection to the British Museum to ensure their long-term survival.

Whilst today we are used to high-quality and detailed images of fossils, the visual impact and verisimilitude of the 200-year-old, originally hand-coloured images is remarkable. Any geologist with some knowledge of English fossils can recognize them. Another tragedy for Smith was that relatively few copies of his works were sold and the series was never completed, consequently they did not become as widely known as they deserved to be.

As we can now appreciate, Smith was incredibly lucky to have met James Sowerby, his engraver, publisher and something of a kindred spirit. Sowerby certainly seems to have indulged some of Smith’s less-practical ideas, such as printing the fossil illustrations on paper coloured to match that of their stratigraphical unit as seen on his map. As a result, the definition and appearance of fossil printed on dark paper, such as the greenish-blue Greensand is not as good as those on paler coloured papers.

To fully appreciate William Smith’s Fossils Reunited you need to own a copy and browse the full extent and depth of its scholarship, which this short review has barely touched upon.

Through his work as a surveyor and his geological research, Smith travelled the length and breadth of England and Wales, gathering, describing and collating fossils. In 1816 he began Strata Identified by Organized Fossils, a book to be published as a series of pamphlets that explained the rocks of England and Wales from youngest to oldest. They were illustrated with exquisitely engraved images of the fossils found in each layer, drawn by renowned naturalist, mineralogist and illustrator, James Sowerby, from specimens provided by Smith. This was an important breakthrough: the first time anyone had tried to categorise strata through the use of fossils. Unfortunately, Smith never completed the project. Poor business decisions forced him into bankruptcy and in 1818 he sold his treasured collection of over 2,680 fossils to the newly formed British Museum providing them with a catalogue of his specimens, A Stratigraphical System of Organized Fossils.

Peter and his team of enthusiastic helpers digitised all the text of the unfinished book and of his fossil catalogue. They scanned the plates of illustrations and located and digitised notes for the unpublished part of the book, along with further original material, including comments and edits in Smith’s own hand. They then matched the illustrations to the original fossils in the Museum’s collection and photographed them. The book shows a scan of each page of the original publication on one side, with facing it the reconstruction of the same page with high-resolution photos of the fossils. Each page of Smith’s original book was colour-coded to agree with the strata colours he used in his map and this scheme has been followed in the book. It also includes copies of Smith’s maps annotated with the original locations of the fossils, which Smith had meticulously recorded.

Congratulations to the team who put together this superb book, and particularly to Peter Wigley, who conceived the idea and was the driving force behind it. It is not only beautiful to look at and a wonderful adornment to any coffee table, it should be of great interest to palaeontologists and to students of the history of geology. It is also a testament to the extraordinary skill of early 19th-century engravers and map makers – and to the genius of William Smith