James Petiver FRS (ca 1663–1718) was a professional apothecary and prominent natural historian in London at the turn of the eighteenth century. This essay introduces a special issue of Notes and Records, ‘Remembering James Petiver’, marking the 300th anniversary of his death. Combining his known biography with new research, it accounts for Petiver's formation as urban apothecary and botanist, his emergence as public natural historian in the mid 1690s, and his subsequent career as natural history collector and author. Petiver's museum of plants and invertebrates was accumulated by co-ordinating an unprecedented network of relatively ordinary people, many of them medical practitioners, to collect for him wherever they travelled: North and South America, western and southern Africa, mainland Europe, South and East Asia, Indonesia and the Philippines. This network and its achievements were predicated upon Britain's expanding global commercial and colonial interests (including those that exploited the traffic in and labour of enslaved human beings). It also depended upon Petiver's strategic management of his collaborators, through the exchange of correspondence and material objects. New analysis of Petiver's network, specimens, publications and manuscripts revises the prevailing view that he was careless and disorganized, to reveal a socially industrious and intellectually discriminating natural scientist.

James Petiver FRS（约1663–1718年）是18世纪初在伦敦的专业药剂师和著名的自然历史学家。本文介绍一期特别的笔记和记录，“纪念詹姆斯·皮提维（James Petiver）”，标志着他去世300周年。将他的著名传记与新研究相结合，说明了佩蒂弗作为城市药剂师和植物学家的形成，他在1690年代中期成为公共自然历史学家的出现以及他随后的自然历史收藏家和作家的职业。佩蒂弗的植物和无脊椎动物博物馆是通过​​协调前所未有的相对普通的人（其中包括许多执业医生）网络而积累起来的，无论他们走到哪里，他都可以为他收集：北美洲和南美洲，西非和南部非洲，欧洲大陆，南部和东部亚洲，印度尼西亚和菲律宾。这个网络及其成就取决于英国 扩大的全球商业和殖民利益（包括那些利用奴役人口的贩运和劳动进行剥削的利益）。通过交换信件和实物，这也取决于Petiver对合作者的战略管理。对Petiver的网络，标本，出版物和手稿的新分析修正了他粗心和杂乱无章的主流观点，从而揭示了一位在社会上勤劳且具有智力差异的自然科学家。