In 1931, Captain E Bagwell Purefoy, a distinguished lepidopterist of the day, wrote of ‘The romance of a beautiful and very rare butterfly’ in The Entomologist (Purefoy 1931). He was referring to the Large Copper, Lycaena dispar, and the fact that Purefoy was writing so fondly of a species that had been extinct in Britain since the mid 19th century illustrates the enigmatic status of this butterfly in British entomology.