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Summary
Summary
From the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, hundreds of British women wrote about and drew from nature. Some--like the beloved children's author Beatrix Potter, who produced natural history about hedgehogs as well as fiction about rabbits--are still familiar today. But others have all but disappeared from view. Barbara Gates recovers these lost works and prints them alongside little-known pieces by more famous authors, like Potter's field notes on hedgehogs, reminding us of better known stories that help set the others in context.
The works contained in this volume are as varied as the women who produced them. They include passionate essays on the protection of animals, vivid accounts of travel and adventure from the English seashore to the Indian Alps, poetry and fiction, and marvelous tales of nature for children. Special features of the book include a detailed chronology placing each selection in its historical and literary context; biographical sketches of each author's life and works; a comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary literature; and over sixty illustrations.
An ideal introduction to women's powerful and diverse responses to the natural world, In Nature's Name will be treasured by anyone interested in natural history, women, or Victorian and Edwardian Britain.
Author Notes
Barbara T. Gates is Alumni Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Delaware. She is the author of Victorian Suicide: Mad Crimes and Sad Histories and Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World , the latter published by the University of Chicago Press. Her edited works include Critical Essays on Charlotte Brontë , the Journal of Emily Shore , and, with Ann B. Shteir, Natural Eloquence: Women Reinscribe Science . In the year 2000, she was awarded the Founders' Distinguished Senior Scholar Award by the American Association of University Women.
Reviews (1)
Choice Review
This volume of excerpts from works of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, art, photos, and drawings responds to the idea that women are not as intelligent or capable as men in the field of science. Gates presents samples of women's writing in seven divisions: "Speaking Out": women claimed the "right to speak on Natures behalf"; "Protecting": women were sensitive to other species and protested against blood sports and vivisection; "Domesticating": women played an important role in the "domestication of animals and plants raised, fostered, or trained in and around the home"; "Adventuring": women collected exotic species, hunted exotic animals, and met exotic peoples; "Appreciating": "The beauty of things destroyed" offended women; "Popularizing Science": many women "educated themselves in the current state of science": and "Amateurs or Professionals": in the 18th and early 19th centuries, "the boundaries between amateur and professional natural historians had been fluid, if not blurred." This volume provides a refreshing look at the roles of many women in fields not usually associated with them. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals in the fields of natural science as well as literature and Victorian/Edwardian studies. J. Overmyer emerita, Ohio State University
Table of Contents
Illustrations |
Acknowledgments |
Preface |
Prelude |
Section One Speaking Out |
Introduction |
Section Two Protecting |
Introduction |
Sensitivity to Other Species |
The Horrors of Sport |
Antivivisection |
Conservation: Birds |
Conservation: The Land and Its Plants |
Section Three Domesticating |
Introduction |
Menageries and Animal Stories |
Farming and Gardsening |
Plants and Interiors |
Section Four Adventuring |
Introduction |
For Science |
For Sport |
Section Five Appreciating |
Introduction |
Romanticism |
Aestheticism |
The Color of Life |
Section Six Popularizing Scinece |
Introduction |
Kinds of Science Popularization |
Women and Darwin |
Section Seven Amateurs or Professionals? |
Introduction |
Who/What Was a Professional? |
Seaweeds, Zoophytes, and Women |
Professionals |
Postlude |
Chronology Biographical Sketches For Further Reading |