‘A fairyland amongst the wildflowers’, Realism and Romance in the works of Beatrix Potter
An eager student of both the arts and the sciences Beatrix Potter’s childhood was equally enchanted by the discovery of…
Survival of the Thesis, Writing Advice from Charles Darwin
NB: For more on Charles Darwin’s outlook on human emotion see the article that prompted this post Thomas Dixon’s piece…
Dietary Didacticism in Wonderland
[NB: I wrote this piece for the Journal of Victorian Culture Online for ‘Alice’ Day who have kindly agreed that…
Growing your PhD Research
In the first year of your PhD, thoughts often feel scattered. Your PhD floats around unanchored and sometimes it feels like…
The Victorian Botanical Clock
The botanical clock, or ‘Watch of Flora’, was a garden plan hypothesised by the eighteenth-century naturalist Carl Linnaeus. This ‘pretty fancy…
Weekly Roundup of Curiosities #3
Article detailing how museums are working to digitize their estimated 3 billion natural history specimens! See also The Peabody Museum’s immense…
Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies and The Origins Debate.
Linley Sambourne’s cartoon ‘Man is but a Worm’, appearing in Punch in 1882 in depicts the evolution of man; from…
The Strange Story of Anna Kingsford
[ illustrations ‘Cold Wind’ & ‘Fake it till you make it’ by Rovina Cai] As the only Victorian medical student at…
Digitised Curiosities: Unlocking the Senses of the Past
As an addendum to my previous post that celebrated the ‘haptics’ of examining physical materials, I thought I would…
Alice Through the Magnifying Glass, Visual and Verbal Interplay in Wonderland
What is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?’ At the start of Alice’s Adventures in…