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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... past eight years. In particular I should like to thank Clare Welford, Stella Clarke, and Helen Hills in Rare Books, Cambridge University Library, for their unfailing patience and alacrity in the face of my increasingly unreason- able ...
... past eight years. In particular I should like to thank Clare Welford, Stella Clarke, and Helen Hills in Rare Books, Cambridge University Library, for their unfailing patience and alacrity in the face of my increasingly unreason- able ...
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... past is dimly glimpsed—and then, just as suddenly, the window mists over, and the reader is left gazing again at the blank rock-face. These bursts of vision drew on a range of literary and iconographic traditions. The new mythology of ...
... past is dimly glimpsed—and then, just as suddenly, the window mists over, and the reader is left gazing again at the blank rock-face. These bursts of vision drew on a range of literary and iconographic traditions. The new mythology of ...
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... past worlds were introduced only gradually and cautiously into geological publications and displays. Even when “scenes from deep time” had become an established pictorial genre, the main burden of communication still fell on words.12 So ...
... past worlds were introduced only gradually and cautiously into geological publications and displays. Even when “scenes from deep time” had become an established pictorial genre, the main burden of communication still fell on words.12 So ...
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... past sparked off a cacophony of competing versions of earth history. Visual and aural media certainly played a vital part in generating these narra- tives, but texts remained central, whether interacting with other media or standing ...
... past sparked off a cacophony of competing versions of earth history. Visual and aural media certainly played a vital part in generating these narra- tives, but texts remained central, whether interacting with other media or standing ...
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... Past As geological writers repeatedly found , it is impossible to write about the past without infusing it with the concerns of the author's own time . For the historian of science , however , it is important to attempt some level of ...
... Past As geological writers repeatedly found , it is impossible to write about the past without infusing it with the concerns of the author's own time . For the historian of science , however , it is important to attempt some level of ...
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