Sharon Ruston

John Holmes

Tracing the continuities and trends in the complex relationship between literature and science in the long nineteenth century, this companion provides scholars with a comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date foundation for research in this field. In intellectual, material and social terms, the transformation undergone by Western culture over the period was unprecedented. Many of these changes were grounded in the growth of science. Yet science was not a cultural monolith then any more than it is now, and its development was shaped by competing world views. To cover the full range of literary engagements with science in the nineteenth century, this companion consists of twenty-seven chapters by experts in the field, which explore crucial social and intellectual contexts for the interactions between literature and science, how science affected different genres of writing, and the importance of individual scientific disciplines and concepts within literary culture. Each chapter has its own extensive bibliography. The volume as a whole is rounded out with a synoptic introduction by the editors and an afterword by the eminent historian of nineteenth-century science Bernard Lightman.

The Routledge Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Science

What is life? This was a question of particular concern for Mary Shelley and her contemporaries. But how did she, and her fellow Romantic writers, incorporate this debate into their work, and how much were they influenced by contemporary science, medicine and personal loss?This book is the first to compile the many attempts in science and medicine to account for life and death in Mary Shelley's time. It considers what her contemporaries thought of air, blood, sunlight, electricity and other elements believed to be most essential for living. Mary Shelley's (and her circle's) knowledge of science and medicine is carefully examined, alongside the work of key scientific and medical thinkers, including John Abernethy, James Curry, Humphry Davy, John Hunter, William Lawrence and Joseph Priestley. Frankenstein demonstrates what Mary Shelley knew of the advice given by medical practitioners for the recovery of persons drowned, hanged or strangled and explores the contemporary scientific basis behind Victor Frankenstein's idea that life and death were merely 'ideal bounds' he could transgress in the making of the Creature. Interweaving images of the manuscript, portraits, medical instruments and contemporary diagrams into her narrative, Sharon Ruston shows how this extraordinary tale is steeped in historical scientific and medical thought exploring the fascinating boundary between life and death.

The Science of Life and Death in Frankenstein

Essays exploring the complex relationship between literature and science.

Literature and Science

Tim Fulford

This is the first collected edition of the letters of Humphry Davy. Davy is a significant figure in both the history of science and literary history. One of the foremost chemists of the early nineteenth century, he was the first person to inhale nitrous oxide. He pioneered electrochemistry, using the Voltaic pile to isolate more chemical elements than any other scientist; and he invented the miners' safety lamp that came to be known as the 'Davy lamp'. His lectures and papers played a key part in the professionalization of science, in the growth of scientific institutions, and in the emergence of scientific disciplines. He was the protege of Thomas Beddoes and Joseph Banks, and the mentor of Michael Faraday. He was also a poet, and a friend of poets, including Wordsworth, Southey, Scott, and Byron. The edition contains fully annotated transcriptions of correspondence (much previously unpublished) with such figures as Joseph Banks, Thomas Beddoes, Jons Jacob Berzelius, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Michael Faraday, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, the Herschels, the Marcets, Marc-Auguste Pictet, Nicolas-Theodore de Saussure, James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood, William Hyde Wollaston, and Thomas Young. The edition throws new light on Davy, on the histories of science and literature, and on the social history of the early nineteenth century. It illuminates scientific controversies over the safety lamp, the Board of Longitude, the Geological Society, and the Royal Society. It offers new perspectives on the 1790s poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey. It illuminates women's literary networks, reveals the links between science and government, and casts light on provincial and dissenting intellectual networks, among Quakers and Unitarians.

Sharon Ruston

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