Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of CreationUniversity of Chicago Press, 2000 - 624 стор. Fiction or philosophy, profound knowledge or shocking heresy? When Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was published anonymously in 1844, it sparked one of the greatest sensations of the Victorian era. More than a hundred thousand readers were spellbound by its startling vision—an account of the world that extended from the formation of the solar system to the spiritual destiny of humanity. As gripping as a popular novel, Vestiges combined all the current scientific theories in fields ranging from astronomy and geology to psychology and economics. The book was banned, it was damned, it was hailed as the gospel for a new age. This is where our own public controversies about evolution began. In a pioneering cultural history, James A. Secord uses the story of Vestiges to create a panoramic portrait of life in the early industrial era from the perspective of its readers. We join apprentices in a factory town as they debate the consequences of an evolutionary ancestry. We listen as Prince Albert reads aloud to Queen Victoria from a book that preachers denounced as blasphemy vomited from the mouth of Satan. And we watch as Charles Darwin turns its pages in the flea-ridden British Museum library, fearful for the fate of his own unpublished theory of evolution. Using secret letters, Secord reveals how Vestiges was written and how the anonymity of its author was maintained for forty years. He also takes us behind the scenes to a bustling world of publishers, printers, and booksellers to show how the furor over the book reflected the emerging industrial economy of print. Beautifully written and based on painstaking research, Victorian Sensation offers a new approach to literary history, the history of reading, and the history of science. Profusely illustrated and full of fascinating stories, it is the most comprehensive account of the making and reception of a book (other than the Bible) ever attempted. Winner of the 2002 Pfizer Award from the History of Science Society |
Зміст
I | 16 |
6 | 25 |
part two Geographies of Reading | 153 |
part three Spiritual Journeys | 297 |
part four Futures of Science | 401 |
533 | |
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Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret ... James A. Secord Обмежений попередній перегляд - 2003 |
Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret ... James A. Secord Обмежений попередній перегляд - 2000 |
Загальні терміни та фрази
Ada Lovelace Adam Sedgwick anonymous astronomy authorship became Bible BL Add British Cambridge Chambers Chambers's Chapter Chartist cheap Christian Churchill Combe controversy conversation copies Darwin debate Desmond diary discussed divine early Edinburgh Edinburgh Review edition of Vestiges essay evangelical fossil Free Church freethought friends geology Herschel Hirst History of Creation human Hume Huxley Ibid infidel Ireland issue John July knowledge later lectures letters Library literary Liverpool Liverpool Journal London London City Mission Lovelace Lyell Magazine Miller moral Napier narrative Natural History nebular nebular hypothesis newspapers NLS Dep NLS mss novel origin Owen paper philosophical phrenological political printed progress published Quarterly read Vestiges readers reform religious Reverend Review Robert Robert Chambers scientific Scottish Sedgwick sensation Society species Street theory tion truth Unitarian Vestiges of Creation Victorian Vyvyan Whewell Whig William women writing wrote