Gilbert White was a naturalist who wrote perhaps the most influential local natural history of the eighteenth century. Born in Selborne in Hampshire, White returned to the village after completing his studies at Oriel College, Oxford, taking up the post of curate at the neighbouring village of Farringdon. Remaining in Selborne for the rest of his life, he eventually became curate of that parish as well as of neighbouring villages and used the time travelling between them to make acute observations of the plants and and animals he encountered. White saw the natural world as an extension of his religious work and avidly recorded his sightings from 1768 to 1793 in copies of The Naturalists' Journal gifted to him by his friend and fellow amateur naturalist, the lawyer Daines Barrington (1726/7–1800) (BL Add MS 31846-31851). White was also a prolific letter-writer and corresponded with Barrington and the famed Welsh antiquary and naturalist Thomas Pennant (1726–98). It was to Pennant that White described his discovery in August 1768 that the common warbler known as the willow wren was in fact three separate birds — willow warbler, wood warbler and chiffchaff — uncovered through his keen hearing and observation of the variation of their song. 

In 1789, a collection of White's draft and unsent letters were compiled and published by his brother, Benjamin, under the title The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne. The book contained 44 letters intended for Barrington and 66 for Pennant, with a further 27 addressed to other naturalists detailing the history and biodiversity of this small part of rural Hampshire. White's Selborne was the first natural history book to focus on an area as small as a parish and was also the first to remark on the behaviour of animals (as opposed to just listing them).

Despite being warmly received by fellow naturalists, Selborne was not an immediate success. It went through several editions but found new popularity from the 1820s as a generation of British naturalists became increasingly interested in behaviour. It has remained in print ever since.