Thomas Bewick is the best known British illustrator of natural history subjects. From early childhood he combined a fascination for drawing with his own detailed observations of the natural world. Bewick claimed that his desire to produce works of natural history originated in the 1780s with dissatisfaction over the books to which he had access as a young boy. He set out to reform not only the style of natural illustration but also the methods of print production. His technical innovations included the rediscovery of various aspects of wood block engraving. His carved images produced a wide range of textures and visual effects, primarily because he cut parallel lines in his blocks as opposed to the more usual cross-hatching. He also relied on the technique of white-line printing, in which the ink is placed on the raised edge of the carved relief instead of in the grooves between the edges. He achieved new effects in dimensional depth and atmospherics by lowing the background areas of his print block images, thus producing shades of gray around the central objects being depicted.

Ralph Beilby, to whom Bewick had initially been apprenticed, became Bewick’s partner in 1777, a partnership that lasted for two decades. Thomas Pennant's General History of Quadrupeds had first appeared in 1781, and Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne followed in 1789. In 1790, Bewick and Beilby published the first edition of their own General History of Quadrupeds. By 1824 the work had appeared in eight editions. Since Bewick did not have access to most of the larger animals he was depicting, he based many of these illustrations on Buffon's Histoire Naturelle (1749-1804), which was translated into English by W. Smellie (1781-85). Bewick and Beilby both contributed to the text of their natural history volumes, although a disagreement over the extent of Beilby's role (he wanted to claim authorship of the volumes) led to the eventual dissolution of the partnership.

Bewick's wood engraving were notable for their accuracy, delicate attention to detail, and lifelike poses. An avid naturalist himself, Bewick based many of his designs for British creatures and scenes (to which he did have access) on personal observations of birds and animals in their natural settings, or from specimens and skins sent to him by other naturalists.  The History of British Birds, Bewicks's most widely known work, began with Land Birds in 1797, followed by Water Birds in 1804. For these volumes, Bewick stated his desire to "stick to nature." He issued revised editions in 1809 and 1816. Eight editions of Land Birds and six of Water Birds were in print by 1826. Bewick apprenticed first his brother and later his son in his studio. He died in 1828, a year after having been visited by John James Audubon.

Bewick's visual work often captures a mood that is reflected in the poetry of James Thomson, Robert Burns, and John Clare, among others. "O that the genius of Bewick were mine" Wordsworth says in Lyrical Ballads. Charlotte Brontë wrote a poem to Bewick when she was only 16, and Brontë's most famous character is reading Bewick's History of British Birds at the opening of Jane Eyre. In fact, Jane Eyre quotes from Bewick, who is himself quoting James Thomson:

                  Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls
                   Boils around the naked, melancholy isles
                   Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge
                   Pours among the stormy Hebrides.

The passage is from Thomson's Seasons. Jane Eyre says that she can never merely pass over those passages "which treat of the haunts of seafowl; of 'the solitary rocks and promontories' by them only inhabited" (20-21).

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