For the Victorian reading public, periodicals played a far greater role than books in shaping their understanding of new discoveries and theories in science, technology and medicine. Such understandings were formed not merely by serious scientific articles, but also by glancing asides in political reports, fictional representations, or humorous attacks in comic magazines. Ranging across diverse forms of periodicals, from top-selling religious and juvenile magazines through to popular fiction-based periodicals, and from the campaigning 'new journalism' of the late century to the comic satire of Punch, this book explores the ways in which scientific ideas and developments were presented to a variety of Victorian audiences. In addition, it offers three case studies of the representation of particular areas of science: 'baby science', scientific biography, and electricity. This intriguing collaborative volume sheds light on issues relating to history and history of science, literature, book history, and cultural and media studies.
- Sheds new light on the reception of scientific advances and information in the Victorian era
- A collaborative book offering a variety of perspectives from some of the most eminent scholars working on Victorian science and the periodical press
- Explores a broad range of periodicals
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Reviews & endorsements
'… fascinating book'. The Times Higher Education Supplement
'… the book is an invaluable work in its own right and as well as a pointer to the potential for future research. I am delighted to have it on my shelves.' Journal of the History of Science
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Product details
- Date Published: January 2008
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521049788
- length: 348 pages
- dimensions: 225 x 153 x 20 mm
- weight: 0.51kg
- contains: 28 b/w illus. 3 tables
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Preface
1. Introduction Gowan Dawson, Richard Noakes and Jonathan R. Topham
Part I. Genres:
2. The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction and cheap miscellanies in early nineteenth-century Britain Jonathan R. Topham
3. The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine and religious monthlies in early nineteenth-century Britain Jonathan R. Topham
4. Punch and comic journalism in mid-Victorian Britain Richard Noakes
5. The Cornhill Magazine and shilling monthlies in mid-Victorian Britain Gowan Dawson
6. The Boy's Own Paper and late-Victorian juvenile magazines Richard Noakes
7. The Review of Reviews and the new journalism in late-Victorian Britain Gowan Dawson
Part II. Themes:
8. Tickling babies: gender, authority and 'baby science' Sally Shuttleworth
9. Scientific biography in the periodical press Geoffrey Cantor
10. Profit and prophecy: electricity in the late-Victorian periodical Graeme Gooday
Notes
Select bibliography
Index.
Look Inside
Authors
Geoffrey Cantor, University of Leeds
Geoffrey Cantor is Professor of the History of Science at the University of Leeds and co-Director (with Sally Shuttleworth) of the 'Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical' (SciPer) project. Among his publications are Michael Faraday, Sandemanian and Scientist (1991) and, with John Hedley Brooke, Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion (1998).
Gowan Dawson, University of Leicester
Gowan Dawson is Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Leicester. He has published articles on the interrelations of Victorian science and literature.
Graeme Gooday, University of Leeds
Graeme Gooday is Senior Lecturer in the History of Science at the University of Leeds. He is the author of The Morals of Measurement: Accuracy, Irony and Trust in Late Victorian Electrical Practice (Cambridge 2004).
Richard Noakes, University of Cambridge
Richard Noakes is British Academy-Royal Society Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Science at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge. He has published on the history of Victorian physical sciences and spiritualism and is the co-editor (with Kevin Knox) of From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University's Lucasian Professors of Mathematics (Cambridge, 2003).
Sally Shuttleworth, University of Sheffield
Sally Shuttleworth is Professor of English Literature at the University of Sheffield. She has worked extensively on the relations between science and literature. Her books in this area include Charlotte Bronte and Victorian Psychology (1996), and Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts, 1830–1890 (with Jenny Bourne Taylor, 1998).
Jonathan R. Topham, University of Leeds
Jonathan Topham is Senior Research Fellow on the 'Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical' (SciPer) Project at the Universities of Sheffield and Leeds. He has published widely on scientific publishing and the readership for science in nineteenth-century Britain and is co-editor of Culture and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Media (2004).
Contributors
Gowan Dawson, Richard Noakes, Jonathan R. Topham, Sally Shuttleworth, Geoffrey Cantor, Graeme Gooday