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‘Darwin, Tennyson and Their Readers: Explorations in Victorian Literature and Science’ is an edited collection of essays from leading authorities in the field of Victorian literature and science, including Gillian Beer and George Levine. Darwin, Tennyson, Huxley, Ruskin, Richard Owen, Meredith, Wilde and other major writers are discussed, as established scholars in this area explore the interaction between Victorian literary and scientific figures which helped build the intellectual climate of twenty-first century debates.
British Society for Literature and Science
‘Each of the essays in this book makes a lively and stimulating contribution to the thick description of the spread and continual mutation of evolutionary ideas and discourses within Victorian culture. Together, they give us a picture that is richly suggestive for future research in this field.’ —John Holmes, ‘Review of English Studies’
‘Beer’s remarks about Darwinian extravagance and Levine’s about Darwinian paradox remind us why they are two of Darwin’s best and most careful readers.’ —Jonathan Smith, ‘SHARP News’
Dr Valerie Purton is Professor of Victorian Literature at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.
Introduction – Valerie Purton; Chapter 1: Tennyson’s ‘Locksley Hall’: Progress and Destitution –Roger Ebbatson; Chapter 2: ‘Tennyson’s Drift’: Evolution in ‘The Princess’ – Rebecca Stott; Chapter 3: History, Materiality and Type in Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam’ – Matthew Rowlinson; Chapter 4: Darwin, Tennyson and the Writing of ‘The Holy Grail’ – Valerie Purton; Chapter 5: ‘An Undue Simplification’: Tennyson’s Evolutionary Afterlife – Michiel Nys; Chapter 6: ‘Like a Megatherium Smoking a Cigar’: Darwin’s Beagle Fossils in Nineteenth-Century Popular Culture – Gowan Dawson; Chapter 7: ‘No Such Thing as a Flower […] No Such Thing as a Man’: John Ruskin’s Response to Darwin – Clive Wilmer; Chapter 8: Darwin and the Art of Paradox – George Levine; Chapter 9: Systems and Extravagance: Darwin, Meredith, Tennyson – Gillian Beer; Chapter 10: T. H. Huxley, Science and Cultural Agency – Jeff Wallace; Notes on Contributors