Originally published 1932 | ||
A Practical Handbook of British Beetles ISBN 0-900848-91-X is a two-volume work on the British beetle fauna, by Norman H. Joy, first published by H. F. & G. Witherby in January 1932. Volume one (xxviii + 622 pages) consists of the text (largely a set of identification keys, with brief status notes for each species). Volume two (194 pages) contains 2040 line-drawings of whole beetles and features referred to in the keys (390 of these were taken from Spry and Shuckard's 1840 publication The British Coleoptera Delineated but the remainder were drawn by Joy). A reduced-size reprint was produced by E. W. Classey in 1976, and again in 1997.
Despite its age, it has remained the standard work on the identification of British beetles into the 21st century, although the British Entomological and Natural History Society produced a companion volume, New British Beetles - species not in Joy's practical handbook by Peter J. Hodge and Richard A. Jones in 1995. British coleopterists refer to the book colloquially simply as "Joy".