victorian culture – The Cabinet of Curiosity

Samantha Evans’ Darwin & Women

ReviewPosted on October 28, 2018by Rosalind White

The latest publication from the Darwin Correspondence Project, Darwin and Women, begins with its own taxonomic quandary. From the outset…

‘I had no escape from it. I loved an animalcule:’ Romance Through the Microscope

longer blog postsPosted on August 18, 2018by Rosalind White

Fitz-James O’Brien (1828-1862) was an Irish-American Civil War soldier and one of the forerunners of the Science-Fiction genre. His primary literary connection…

‘Walking into a living grave’: the Orchid Mantis & Alfred Russell Wallace

longer blog postsPosted on July 19, 2018by Rosalind White

The orchid mantis, (Hymenopus coronatus) is renowned for its visual resemblance to an orchid in bloom. Its pink heart-shaped mid-and hind-legs…

The Victorian Kindle: Schloss’s Bijou Almanac

interesting titbitsPosted on June 9, 2018by Rosalind White

‪In the mid nineteenth-century no handbag was complete without a Schloss Bijou Almanac. Anticipating the portability of kindles and tablets,…

‘The Entomologist’s Dream’

musingsPosted on May 21, 2018by Rosalind White

In The Entomologist’s Dream (1909) by Edmund Dulac an entomologist – in a state of near collapse – bears witness to…

How the Victorian Craze for Conchology became a Billion-dollar Business

longer blog postsPosted on February 28, 2018by Rosalind White

Throughout the nineteenth-century the mania for seashells steadily swelled; they featured on Christmas cards, and adorned countless keepsakes, jewellery, and furniture….