Book excerpt: A founder of comparative anatomy and giant of 19th-century biology, Georges Cuvier began publishing his 22-volume Histoire naturelle des poissons in 1828. Cuvier's history became a landmark survey in the science of fishes, delving back before the Greeks to the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians. As an introduction to this monumental work, his first volume traced the development of the study of fishes as he understood it and outlined the criteria for classification that his own work would follow. This critically important essay - arguably the first attempt at comprehensive marine biology - now appears in English translation for the first time, accompanied by rich annotations. Theodore Pietsch's commentary on Cuvier's Histoire naturelle des poissons returns this important volume to our attention and highlights its historical significance. Appreciative modern readers will include ichthyologists, evolutionary biologists, and historians of science.