Walter Lawry Buller (1838-1906) was a New Zealand lawyer and naturalist, and dominated ornithology in the country in the nineteenth century. This book, the first edition of his History of the Birds of New Zealand, was one of the most comprehensive studies of New Zealand birdlife to date and describes many species that were threatened or risked extinction by European settlement on the islands.

The birds of New Zealand are remarkable in that they evolved in a part of the world with no large predators and thus display a spectacular range of diversity, occupying niches that were taken up by other animals in the rest of the world. This diversity allowed for the evolution of megafauna such as the now-extinct moa and several species of flightless birds including the critically endangered kakapo and the bird which has become a symbol of the country: the kiwi.

Buller intended this work to contain images of all the birds of the islands and states in his preface that the volume contains 145 species, over 20 more than previous books on New Zealand ornithology. His hope was that the book would serve as a record to the diversity of birdlife in New Zealand and highlight the effects of colonisation since both the arrival of Māori, the first people to settle the islands, and the intensive development of the land since the arrival of European settlers in the late eighteenth century, in the hope that the habitats of these birds could be conserved.

The book was published by subscription - this is Queen Victoria's copy - and Buller soon issued a larger, two-volume edition in 1887, and a two-volume supplement in 1905. The colourful lithographs were produced from drawings by two prolific bird illustrators of the late-nineteenth century, John Gerrard Keulemans and Henrik Grönevold, and although they do not match the magnificent life-size illustrations in works such as Audubon's Birds of America or John Gould's extensive ornithological publications, they are nevertheless full of detail and vibrancy.