The earth on show : fossils and the poetics of popular science, 1802-1856

Resource Information

The work The earth on show : fossils and the poetics of popular science, 1802-1856 represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The earth on show : fossils and the poetics of popular science, 1802-1856

Title remainder

fossils and the poetics of popular science, 1802-1856

Statement of responsibility

Ralph O'Connor

Creator

• O'Connor, Ralph

Subject

• Geology -- Social aspects -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
• Geology in literature
• History
• Geology -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
• Literature and science -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
• Science -- Philosophy | History -- 19th century
• Literature and history -- Great Britain

Genre

• History

Language

eng

Summary

• Ralph O'Connor tracks the astonishing growth of geology's prestige in Briatin, 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 at the turn of the 19th century
• "At the turn of the nineteenth century, geology - and its claims that the earth had a long and colorful prehuman history - was widely dismissed as dangerous 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." "Savvy 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."--BOOK JACKET

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

550.941/09034

Illustrations

• illustrations
• plates

Index

index present

LC call number

QE13.G7

LC item number

O35 2007

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography