Bibliotheca Herpetologica 16(7)

Dodd, C. K. Jr. 2022. The International Editions of Archie Carr’s Books. Bibliotheca Herpetologica 16(7):82–89. Published July 2, 2022. Archie Fairly Carr, Jr. (16 June 1909–21 May 1987) loved his turtles and the peoples and cultures of Florida and the Caribbean. He spent his entire career, from undergraduate to Professor Emeritus, at the University of Florida (UF), where in 1937 he received the first Ph.D. in Biology awarded by UF. Early in his career he focused on general herpetology, then narrowed his research interests to turtles, and then narrowed it further to sea turtles, about which so little was known in the early to mid-20th Century. Archie was also an outstanding writer, turning words and phrases into images and feelings to create an atmosphere of what it was like to be walking through a tropical forest or finding turtles on black sand beaches. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that Archie majored in English rather than Biology as an undergraduate at UF. In addition to his scientific papers he wrote popular articles for both young adults and adult naturalists, many of which were later republished (Carr 1994). In terms of writing, Archie is best known for his four natural history books, blending science, travel, and good writing to enthrall generations in the creatures and ecosystems around them. He received numerous awards for his research, conservation efforts, and writing, among them the Daniel Girard Elliott Medal from the National Academy of Sciences (1952), the O’Henry Memorial Award (1956) for his essay “The Black Beach” in The Windward Road, the John Burroughs Medal (American Museum of Natural History), and the World Wildlife Fund Gold Medal. It perhaps is not surprising, then, that many of Archie Carr’s books have been published internationally. This is particularly true of the three volumes published in the Time-Life series in the 1960–1970s. In this paper, I present the first compilation of Archie Carr’s books published internationally and in non-English text.