The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856At the turn of the nineteenth century, geology—and its claims that the earth had a long and colorful prehuman history—was widely dismissedasdangerous nonsense. But just fifty years later, it was the most celebrated of Victorian sciences. Ralph O’Connor tracks the astonishing growth of geology’s prestige in Britain, exploring how a new geohistory far more alluring than the standard six days of Creation was assembled and sold to the wider Bible-reading public. Shrewd science-writers, O’Connor shows, marketed spectacular visions of past worlds, piquing the public imagination with glimpses of man-eating mammoths, talking dinosaurs, and sea-dragons spawned by Satan himself. These authors—including men of science, women, clergymen, biblical literalists, hack writers, blackmailers, and prophets—borrowed freely from the Bible, modern poetry, and the urban entertainment industry, creating new forms of literature in order to transport their readers into a vanished and alien past. In exploring the use of poetry and spectacle in the promotion of popular science, O’Connor proves that geology’s success owed much to the literary techniques of its authors. An innovative blend of the history of science, literary criticism, book history, and visual culture, The Earth on Show rethinks the relationship between science and literature in the nineteenth century. |
From inside the book
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... passages may seem like islands of evocative prose separated by oceans of fossil descriptions, lengthy discussions of strata, lists of minerals, and osteological analyses. To nineteenth-century readers, however, the moments of epiphany ...
... passages may seem like islands of evocative prose separated by oceans of fossil descriptions, lengthy discussions of strata, lists of minerals, and osteological analyses. To nineteenth-century readers, however, the moments of epiphany ...
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... passage as a fragment of the “sermons [. . .] which, according to the poet, are to be found in stones”,14 implying that similar visions can be seen wherever the bare materials present themselves. The sudden shift from seascapes of the ...
... passage as a fragment of the “sermons [. . .] which, according to the poet, are to be found in stones”,14 implying that similar visions can be seen wherever the bare materials present themselves. The sudden shift from seascapes of the ...
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... passages without the help of that. In the world of science , moreover , new terms rarely passed into com- mon use as soon as coined . “ Scientist ” and “ dinosaur ” ( coined in 1833 and 1842 respectively ) were rarely used before the ...
... passages without the help of that. In the world of science , moreover , new terms rarely passed into com- mon use as soon as coined . “ Scientist ” and “ dinosaur ” ( coined in 1833 and 1842 respectively ) were rarely used before the ...
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... passages without the help of that pedantic little word sic.30 The past is, after all, a foreign country.31 In this spirit I have also avoided mentioning current thinking on the specific geological questions discussed, except in specific ...
... passages without the help of that pedantic little word sic.30 The past is, after all, a foreign country.31 In this spirit I have also avoided mentioning current thinking on the specific geological questions discussed, except in specific ...
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... passages ( “ beauties ” ) for readers with no time to read entire books . As Leah Price has shown , early - nineteenth - century readers developed an eagle eye for choice passages and an ability to skim the surrounding matrix . Novel ...
... passages ( “ beauties ” ) for readers with no time to read entire books . As Leah Price has shown , early - nineteenth - century readers developed an eagle eye for choice passages and an ability to skim the surrounding matrix . Novel ...
Contents
PART II STAGING THE SHOW | |
New Mythologies of the Ancient Earth | |
Currencies and Sizes of Books | |
Works Cited | |
Credits | |
Index | |
Other editions - View all
The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 Ralph O'Connor No preview available - 2008 |
The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 Ralph O'Connor No preview available - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic ancient earth animals Anon antediluvian audience authority Bakewell biblical bones Bridgewater Treatise British Buckland Byron Cain Cambridge cave Creation culture Cuvier Deluge diorama display drama earth history Edinburgh edition Eidophusikon engravings extinct fiction fossil frontispiece Genesis genres geologists geology geology’s Gideon Mantell guidebook Hawkins Hugh Miller hyaenas ichthyosaur Iguanodon imagination John landscape lectures literal literalist literary literature London Lyell Lyme Regis mammoth Mantell Mantell's Martin Megalosaurus Miller Milton monsters Museum narrative Natural History natural theology nineteenth century ODNB Old Red Sandstone Oxford panorama Paradise Lost past period philosophical pictorial picture plesiosaur poem poet poetic poetry popular present prose pterodactyle quotation quoted readers Rennie reptiles restorations rhetoric romance Rudwick Rupke saurians scene scientific Secord Sommer spectacle story sublime theatre theatrical theories tion title-page Topham treatise University Press verse Victorian virtual tourism vision visual William William Buckland words writing