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Science Writing in the Romantic Era 1770-1837: Volume IV: Science in Society book cover

1st Edition

Science Writing in the Romantic Era 1770-1837 Volume IV: Science in Society

Edited By Tim Fulford Copyright 2027
750 Pages
by Routledge

This volume draws together texts revealing the increased and varied roles that science played in society at large, beyond the laboratory, the learned society and the scientific journal. Women's science writing, sampled here, was often professedly designed to educate a lay - usually female - readership. The emphasis was less on new discovery than on clear explanation, often in form of dialogue... Read more

Volume 4. Science in Society

General Introduction

Volume 4 Introduction

 

Part 1. Women in Science

1. Caroline Herschel, from ‘An Account of a New Comet. In a letter from Miss Caroline Herschel to Charles Blagden, M.D. Sec. R. S.’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 77 (1787), pp. 1-3

2. Priscilla Wakefield, from Introduction to Botany (Dublin: P. Wogan et al, 1796), Preface and pp. 1-3.

3. Jane Marcet, from Conversations on Chemistry, Intended More Especially for the Female Sex (London: Longman, Rees, Hurst, Orme and Brown, 1817), pp. v-x, 160-81.

 

Part 2. The Figure of the Scientist/Philosophy of Science

4. Humphry Davy, from Introductory Discourse to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry (1802) in The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy, ed. John Davy (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1839), vol. 2, pp. 307-26.

5. S. T. Coleridge, from The Friend, 3 vols (London: Rest Fenner, 1818), vol. 2, section 2, essays 6 and 7.

6. Charles Babbage, from Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of its Causes (London: B. Fellowes and J. Booth, 1830), pp. 3-26.

7. J. F. W. Herschel, from A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1830), pp. 347-61. 

8. Mary Somerville, On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, 2nd edn (London: J. Murray, 1834), pp. 188-238.

9. William Whewell, from ‘On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences. By Mrs. Somerville’, The Quarterly Review, 51 (1834), pp. 54-68.

 

Part 3. Institutions

10. The Pneumatic Institution: from Thomas Beddoes, ed., Proposal towards the Improvement of Medicine (Bristol, 1794).

11. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, from Proposals for Forming by Subscription in the Metropolis of the British Empire a Public Institution (London, 1799), pp. 1-50.

12. ‘Proposals for the Establishment of a London Mechanics Institute’, Mechanics’ Magazine, 1 (1823), pp. 99-102.

 

Part 4. Popular Science

13. James Graham, from A Lecture on the Generation, Increase, and Improvement of the Human Species (London: printed for the author, 1783), pp. 6-14, 18, 20.

14. Benjamin Perkins, from The Influence of Metallic Tractors on the Human Body (London: J. Johnson, 1798), pp. 88-99.

15. George Roberts, A Catechism of Electricity; Being a Short Introduction to That Science (London: G. and W. B. Whittaker, 1822), pp. 31-39.

16. David Brewster, from Letters on Natural Magic (London: J. Murray, 1832), pp. 8-36, 56-97.

 

Part 5. Technology

17. Threshing Machines, Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, vol. 8 (London: J. J. Griffin, 1849), pp. 339-41.

18. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, from An Essay on Chimney Fire-places; with Proposals for Improving Them, to Save Fuel (Dublin: R. E. Mercier, 1796), pp. 1-24.

19. Robert Southey, ‘The Black Country’, from Letters from England, 3rd edn, 3 vols (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1814), vol. 2, pp. 56-66.

20. Thomas Carlyle, ‘The Mechanical Age’ from ‘Signs of the Times’, The Edinburgh Review, 98 (June, 1829), pp. 439-59.

21. William Matthews, from An Historical Sketch of the Origin, Progress and Present State of Gas-Lighting (London: Rowland Hunter, 1827), pp. 19-52, 235-37.

22. Andrew Ure, ‘The Factory System’, from The Philosophy of Manufactures (London: Charles Knight, 1835), pp. 105-23, 160-206.

23. Edward Baines, from A History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain (London: H. Fisher, R. Fisher and P. Jackson, 1835), pp. 147-244.

24. John Herapath, ‘On Railroads’ and ‘Railway Travelling’, The Railway Magazine, 1 (1836), pp. 1-6; 110-13.

25. ‘Ships’ Blocks’, from ‘Manufactures’, Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, vol. 8 (London: J. J. Griffin, 1849), pp. 295-98.

26. Charles Babbage, from ‘On the General Principles Which Regulate the Application of Machinery to Manufacture and the Mechanical Arts’, Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, vol. 8 (London: J. J. Griffin, 1849), pp. 18-84.

27. ‘Steam Engines’ from ‘Manufactures’, Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, vol. 8 (London: J. J. Griffin, 1849), pp. 184-87.

28. Mary Strickland, from A Memoir of the Life, Writings, and Inventions, of Edmund Cartwright, D.D. FRS: Inventor of the Power Loom (London: Saunders and Otley, 1843), pp. 54-67, 330-33.

29. Samuel Smiles, ‘Pont-Cysylltau Aqueduct’ from The Life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer, new edn (London: J. Murray, 1867), pp. 155-63.

30. Samuel Smiles, from Lives of the Engineers: the Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson, new edn (London: J. Murray, 1877), pp. 63-88, 123-45, 207-20.

31. Samuel Smiles, from Lives of the Engineers: Harbours, Lighthouses, Bridges. John Rennie, new edn (London: J. Murray, 1874), pp. 222-39.

32. Samuel Smiles, from Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers. Henry Maudslay (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864), pp. 245-88. 

Bibliography

Index

 

Biography

Tim Fulford is Professor of English at de Montfort University. His publications include Experimentalism in Wordsworth's later Poetry: Dialogues with the Dead (2023) Robert Southey, Lives of Labouring-class Poets, ed. Tim Fulford (2023) and Robert Southey, The Life of Wesley and Rise and Progress of Methodism (2022).

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