Edmund Selous

Born in London, the son of a wealthy stockbroker, Selous was educated privately and matriculated at Pembroke College, Cambridge in September 1877.

He practised as a barrister only briefly before retiring to pursue the study of natural history and literature.

[3] Fanny was the eldest daughter of the novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915) and publisher John Maxwell (1824-1895).

Let anyone who has an eye and a brain (but especially the latter), lay down the gun and take up the glasses for a week, a day, even for an hour, if he is lucky, and he will never wish to change back again.

He travelled to southern Africa and India in his youth and later to Shetland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Iceland to observe birds there.