Conscientious workmen or booksellers' hacks? - The professional identities of science writers in the mid-nineteenth century

ISIS

Volumn 96, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 192-223

  Fyfe, Aileen ^a  

^a NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND   (Ireland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; HISTORY; HUMAN; PUBLISHING; SCIENCE; UNITED KINGDOM; WRITING;

AUTHORSHIP; BOOKSELLING; GREAT BRITAIN; HISTORY, 18TH CENTURY; HUMANS; PUBLISHING; SCIENCE; WRITING;

EID: 33745493505     PISSN: 00211753     EISSN: 15456994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/431532     Document Type: Article

References (240)

1. David Brewster to James David Forbes, 11 Feb. 1830, quoted in John Campbell Shairp, Peter Guthrie Tait, and A. Adams-Reilly, Life and Letters of James David Forbes, FRS (London: Macmillan, 1873), p. 59.
2. See also William H. Brock, "Brewster as Scientific Journalist," in "Martyr of Science": Sir David Brewster, 1781-1863: Proceedings of a Bicentennial Symposium, ed. Alison Morison-Low and John R. R. Christie (Edinburgh: Royal Scottish Museum, 1984), pp. 37-44.
3. On Huxley's writing at this time see Adrian Desmond, Huxley: The Devil's Disciple (London: Joseph, 1994), Chs. 9-10.
4. On writing as a way of communicating research to other specialists see Alan G. Gross, Joseph E. Harmon, and Michael S. Reidy, Communicating Science: The Scientific Article from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002);
5. Greg Myers, Writing Biology: Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge (Madison: Univ. Wisconsin Press, 1990);
6. Jan Golinski, Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), Ch. 4;
7. and Charles Bazerman, Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science (Madison: Univ. Wisconsin Press, 1988).
8. I thank Jim Secord for sharing his thoughts on science, conversation, and polite society.
9. Gould's rise is described in Isabella Tree, The Ruling Passion of John Gould: A Biography of the Bird Man (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1991).
10. See also Gordon C. Sauer, John Gould, the Bird Man: A Chronology and Bibliography (London: Sotheran, 1982).
11. Gosse's reputation later suffered from his publication of Omphalos (1857).
12. Oh his life and work see Ann Thwaite, Glimpses of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse, 1810-1888 (London: Faber, 2002)
13. (hereafter cited as Thwaite, Glimpses of the Wonderful).
14. The frustrations of trying to make a living from science in the 1840s and 1850s are apparent in the case of the Geological Survey men discussed in James A. Secord, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 2000), Ch. 14.
15. Forbes's choice of a profession is discussed in Shairp et al., Life and Letters of Forbes (cit. n. 1), Ch. 4.
16. Gosse was self-employed during his trip to Jamaica, but he had an arrangement with a London dealer for the purchase of his specimens; see Thwaite, Glimpses of the Wonderful, pp. 121-143.
17. On Somerville see James A. Secord, ed., The Collected Works of Mary Somerville, 9 vols. (Bristol: Thoemmes, 2004), introductions to Vols. 1-3.
18. William Buckland to Robert Peel, 12 Jan. 1842, quoted in Nicolaas Rupke, Richard Owen: Victorian Naturalist (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1994), p. 52;
19. the role of patronage in Owen's social rise is charted in Chs. 1-2. On the debate over the status of Vestiges see, e.g., Richard Yeo, "Science and Intellectual Authority in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain: Robert Chambers and Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," Victorian Studies, 1984, 28:5-31;
20. and Secord, Victorian Sensation (cit. n. 5), esp. Chs. 7, 12.
21. am here using "popular" to refer to a genre of scientific publications and not, for instance, to science as practiced by members of the working classes. On the various meanings of "popular science" see Roger Cooter and Stephen Pumfrey, "Separate Spheres and Public Places: Reflections on the History of Science Popularization and Science in Popular Culture," History of Science, 1994, 52:237-267.
22. [David Massen], "Present Aspects and Tendencies of Literature," British Quarterly Review, 1855, 21:151-181, on p. 167.
23. On professionalization see Harold Perkin, The Origins: of Modern English Society, 1780-1880 (London: Routledge, 1969);
24. and T. W. Heyck, The Transformation of Intellectual Life in Victorian England (London: Croom Helm, 1982).
25. On professionalization in science see Roy Porter, "Gentlemen and Geology: The Emergence of a Scientific Career, 1860-1920," Historical Journal, 1978, 27:809-836;
26. and Joseph Ben-David, The Scientist's Role in Society: A Comparative Study, rpt. ed. (London: Univ. Chicago Press, 1984).
27. On professionalization in authorship see John Sutherland, Victorian Novelists and Publishers (London: Athlone, 1976);
28. Victor Bonham-Carter, Authors by Profession (London: Society of Authors, 1978);
29. and Nigel Cross, The Common Writer: Life in Nineteenth-Century Grub Street (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985).
30. [George Henry Lewes], "The Condition of Authors in England, Germany, and France," Fraser's Magazine, 1847, 35:285-295, on p. 285.
31. See also [J. W. Kaye], "Pendennis: The Literary Profession," North British Review, 1850, 75:335-372;
32. and "Authors and Publishers [1]," New Quarterly Review, 1854, 5:9-17. Once a literary professional was defined as one who lived by his writing, the next issue was whether authorship was a profession like other professions, given that it lacked entry qualifications and its practitioners had no shared group identity.
33. A list of the surviving British publishers' archives can be found in Alexis Weedon and Michael Bott, British Book Trade Archives, 1830-1939 (History of the Book-On Demand Series) (Bristol: Simon Eliot and Michael Turner, 1996).
34. Full bibliographies for both Martin and Milner can be found in Aileen Fyfe, Science and Salvation: Evangelicals and Popular Science Publishing in Victorian Britain (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 2004)
35. (hereafter cited as Fyfe, Science and Salvation), Ch. 6, which discusses their religious motivations in detail.
36. On the Royal Literary Fund see Cross, Common Writer (cit. n. 9), Ch. 1;
37. on scientific involvement in the fund, particularly before the founding of the Science Relief Fund in 1859, see Cross, Common Writer ibid., pp. 55-58;
38. the question of the representativeness of the applicants is discussed Cross, Common Writer ibid., pp. 3-4.
39. The archive has been published by World Microfilms; see Nigel Cross, The Royal Literary Fund, 1790-1918: An Introduction to the Fund's History and Archives, with an Index of Applicants (London: World Microfilms, 1984).
40. On the practice of science see, e.g., Andrew Pickering, ed., Science as Practice and Culture (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1992).
41. The argument regarding writing as a practical activity has been made more extensively in Fyfe, Science and Salvation, Ch. 5.
42. On the transformation of the book trade see John Feather, A History of British Publishing (London: Routledge, 1988), Ch. 11;
43. Simon Eliot, Some Patterns and Trends in British Publishing, 1800-1919 (London: Bibliographic Society, 1994);
44. Aled Jones, ed., Powers of the Press: Newspapers, Power, and the Public in Nineteenth-Century England (Aldershot: Scolar, 1996);
45. and Alexis Weedon, Victorian Publishing: The Economics of Book Production for a Mass Market, 1836-1916 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).
46. On the mass media see James Curran and Jean Seaton, Power without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain, 4th ed. (London: Routledge, 1991).
47. American literacy followed different patterns than British literacy, but the American book trade benefited from the same changes in printing technologies in the first half of the nineteenth century. Higher literacy rates meant that the impact of these new technologies was more immediate than in Britain. See Richard D. Brown, Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700-1865 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990);
48. and Ronald J. Zboray, A Fictive People: Antebellum Economic Development and the American Reading Public (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993).
49. Victor E. Neuburg, Popular Literature: A History and a Guide (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), Chs. 3, 4.
50. Contemporaries were slow to realize that the lower-middle classes (rather than the working classes) were the key beneficiaries of cheaper print. Although the working classes began to form part of the reading audience from midcentury, print cannot be considered to have been universally available until the very late nineteenth century. On working-class reading audiences see R. K. Webb, The British Working Class Reader, 1790-1848: Literacy and Social Tension (London: Allen & Unwin, 1955);
51. Richard D. Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800-1900 (Chicago/London: Univ. Chicago Press, 1957);
52. Jon P. Klancher, The Making of English Reading Audiences. 1790-1832 (Madison: Univ. Wisconsin Press, 1987), Ch. 3;
53. and Patrick Joyce, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991), Chs. 10-11.
54. I would hardly deny that nontechnical expository works on the sciences existed before the mid-nineteenth century; but I would argue that these works were not "popular" in the full sense of the word (and could not be until the eighteenth-century public sphere was transformed into the nineteenth-century mass audience). On the etymology of "popular" and "popular science" see the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "popular," meaning 4a. The OED's first recorded usage of "popular science" is from 1841. On changing meanings of "popular" and "the people" see Morag Shiach, Discourse on Popular Culture: Class, Gender, and History in Cultural Analysis, 1730 to the Present (Cambridge: Polity, 1989), pp. 1-34.
55. On reading in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries see John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: Harper Collins, 1997), Chs. 3-4;
56. and William St. Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004).
57. Before 1774, books in England remained perpetually in copyright, despite a 1710 act to the contrary. See John Feather, "The Publishers and the Pirates: British Copyright-Law in Theory and Practice, 1710-1775," Publishing History, 1987, 22:5-32;
58. Feather, Publishing, Piracy, and Politics (London: Mansell, 1995), Ch. 3;
59. and Richard D. Altick, "From Aldine to Everyman: Cheap Reprint Series of the English Classics, 1830-1906," Studies in Bibliography, 1958, 11:3-25
60. . Once the copyright law changed publishers did sometimes employ an editor to abridge or update a work, though they relied chiefly on reprints. On the extracting practices of magazines see Jonathan R. Topham, "John Limbird, Thomas Byerley, and the Production of Cheap Periodicals in Regency Britain," Book History, 2005, 8 (forthcoming).
61. Figures for 1801-1810 suggest that the sciences comprised 3.47 percent of all titles published by the British book trade, rising to 4.36 percent by the 1840s; see Simon Eliot, "Patterns and Trends and the NSTC: Some Initial Observations: Part II," Publishing Hist., 1998, 43:11-112,
62. Table E. Weedon, Victorian Publishing (cit. n. 14), pp. 90-93,
63. discusses the change in market share of science and other subjects and compares the typical print runs in the various categories. A very rough subject analysis for the eighteenth century may be found in John Feather, "British Publishing in the Eighteenth Century: A Preliminary Subject Analysis," Library, 1986, 6th Ser., 8:32-46.
64. For the early nineteenth-century scientific book trade see Jonathan R. Topham, "Scientific Publishing and the Reading of Science in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain: An Historiographical Survey and Guide to Sources," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2000, 31A:559-612.
65. On science for women see Marina Benjamin, "Elbow Room: Women Writers on Science, 1790-1840," in Science and Sensibility: Gender and Scientific Enquiry, 1780-1945, ed. Benjamin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), pp. 27-69;
66. Ann B. Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science: Flora's Daughters and Botany in England, 1760-1860 (London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1996), Chs. 1-3;
67. and Bernard Lightman, ed., Science Writing by Women (Bristol: Thoemmes, 2004),
68. introduction. On science for children see James A. Secord, "Newton in the Nursery: Tom Telescope and the Philosophy of Tops and Balls. 1761-1838," Hist. Sci., 1985, 23:127-151;
69. Aileen Fyfe, "Reading Children's Books in Eighteenth-Century Dissenting Families," Hist. J., 2000, 43:453-474;
70. Fyfe, "Young Readers and the Sciences," in Books and the Sciences in History, ed. Marina Frasca-Spada and Nicholas Jardine (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000), pp. 276-290;
71. and Fyfe, Science for Children (Bristol: Thoemmes, 2003),
72. introduction. On the growth of the scientific book trade see A. J. Meadows, ed., The Development of Science Publishing in Europe (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1980);
73. and Andrew Hunter, ed., Thornton and Tully's Scientific Books, Libraries, and Collectors: A Study of Bibliography and the Book Trade in Relation to the History of Science, 4th ed. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).
74. On audiences for science in the early to mid-eighteenth century see Simon Schaffer, "Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century," Hist. Sci., 1983, 27:1-43;
75. and Larry Stewart, "Public Lectures and Private Patronage in Newtonian England," Isis, 1986, 77:47-58.
76. On Wakefield see Ann B. Shteir, introduction to Priscilla Wakefield, Mental Improvement; or, The Beauties and Wonders of Nature and Art (1794-1797; East Lansing, Mich.: Colleagues, 1995);
77. and Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, Ch. 4.
78. On Marcet see David Knight, "Accomplishment or Dogma: Chemistry in the Introductory Works of Jane Marcet and Samuel Parkes," Ambix, 1986, 33:94-98;
79. M. Susan Lindee, "The American Career of Jane Marcel's Conversations on Chemistry, 1806-1853," Isis, 1991, 82:8-23;
80. Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, Ch. 4;
81. Greg Myers, "Fictionality, Demonstration, and a Forum for Popular Science: Jane Marcel's Conversations on Chemistry," in Natural Eloquence: Women Reinscribe Science, ed. Barbara T. Gates and Shteir (Madison: Univ. Wisconsin Press, 1997), pp. 43-60;
82. Saba Bahar, "Jane Marcet and the Limits to Public Science," British Journal for the History of Science, 2001, 34:29-49;
83. and Aileen Fyfe, introduction to Jane Marcet, Conversations on Chemistry (1806; Bristol: Thoemmes, 2004).
84. On Smith and Fitton see Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, Chs. 3-4.
85. Joyce was unusual, at this time, in that he earned his living solely from writing (but not just on the sciences) for the final fifteen years of his life; see John R. Issitt, "The Life and Work of Jeremiah Joyce" (Ph.D. diss., Open Univ., 2000).
86. On Dick see William J. Astore, Observing God: Thomas Dick, Evangelicalism, and Popular Science in Victorian Britain and America (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001).
87. On Gregory see the entry in Bernard Lightman, ed., Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists, 4 vols. (Bristol: Thoemmes, 2004).
88. According to Simon Eliot, 1,750 science books were published in the decade 1801-1810; see Eliot, "Patterns and Trends and the NSTC, Pt. II" (cit. n. 18), Table E. This estimate is based on Dewey decimal classifications and must be considered very approximate.
89. The identification of "Dr B." as Brewster is a guess, but it seems probable. For the description see Adam Black to W. L. Alexander, ca. 1831, quoted in James Ross, W. Lindsay Alexander, DD, LLD: His Life and Work, with Illustrations of His Teaching (London: Nisbet, 1887), p. 43.
90. On Brewster see Brock, "Brewster as Scientific Journalist" (cit, n. 1);
91. and Mrs. Gordon, The Home Life of Sir David Brewster (Edinburgh, 1869).
92. For the 1871 census figures see Cross, Common Writer (cit. n. 9), p. 3.
93. On literacy statistics see R. S. Schofield, "Dimensions of Illiteracy in England, 1750-1850," in Literacy and Social Development in the West: A Reader, ed. Harvey J. Graff (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981), pp. 201-213;
94. see also Weedon, Victorian Publishing (cit. n. 14), pp. 50-51.
95. On literacy more generally see David Vincent, Literacy and Popular Culture: England, 1750-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989);
96. David F. Mitch, The Rise of Popular Literacy in Victorian England: The Influence of Private Choice and Public Policy (Philadelphia: Univ. Pennsylvania Press, 1992);
97. and Vincent, The Rise of Mass Literacy: Reading and Writing in Modern Europe (Oxford: Polity, 2000).
98. On school education see W. A. C. Stewart and W. P. McCann, The Educational Innovators, 1750-1880 (London: Macmillan, 1967);
99. and T. W. Laqueur, Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working-Class Culture, 1780-1850 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1976).
100. For a general overview of technical innovations in the book trade see Feather, History of British Publishing (cit. n. 14), pp. 129-179.
101. On the specific cost implications of these changes see Weedon, Victorian Publishing, Ch. 3.
102. On the technologies themselves see Philip Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972);
103. and Michael Twyman, Printing, 1770-1970: An Illustrated History of Its Development and Uses in England (London: British Library, 1999).
104. Copyright protection had become forty-two years, or the life of the author, in 1842. See Mark Rose, Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright (Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard Univ. Press, 1993);
105. and Feather, Publishing, Piracy, and Politics (cit. n. 17), Chs. 5-6.
106. On the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge see J. N. Hays, "Science and Brougham's Society," Annals of Science, 1964, 20:227-241;
107. Harold Smith, The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1826-46 (Halifax, N.S.: Dalhousie Univ. Press, 1974);
108. Scott Bennett, "Revolutions in Thought: Serial Publication and the Mass Market for Reading," in The Victorian Periodical Press, ed. Joanne Shattock and Michael Wolff (Leicester: Univ. Leicester Press, 1982);
109. David Vincent, Bread, Knowledge, and Freedom: A Study of Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Autobiography (London: Methuen, 1982), Ch. 7;
110. Patricia Anderson, The Printed Image and the Transformation of Popular Culture, 1790-1860 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), Ch. 2;
111. and Jonathan R. Topham, "Science and Popular Education in the 1830s: The Role of the Bridgewater Treatises," Brit. J. Hist. Sci., 1992, 25:397-430.
112. On Chambers see Sondra Miley Cooney, "Publishers for the People: W. & R. Chambers - The Early Years, 1832-50" (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State Univ., 1970);
113. and Robert Scholnick, "The Fiery Cross of Knowledge': Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, 1832-43," Victorian Periodicals Review, 1999, 52:324-358.
114. On the Religious Tract Society see Aileen Fyfe, "Commerce and Philanthropy: The Religious Tract Society and the Business of Publishing," Journal of Victorian Culture, 2004, 9:164-188.
115. Little has yet been written on the science works of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, but see Topham, "Science and Popular Education in the 1830s"; and William K. L. Clarke, A History of the SPCK (London: SPCK, 1959).
116. On the low-priced periodicals of the educational publishers see Geoffrey Cantor, Gowan Dawson, Graeme Gooday, Richard Noakes, Sally Shuttleworth, and Jonathan R. Topham, Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004),
117. introduction. On religious magazines and their science content see Topham, "Science, Natural Theology, and the Practice of Christian Piety in Early Nineteenth-Century Religious Magazines," in Science Serialized: Representations of the Sciences in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals, ed. Cantor and Shuttleworth (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004), pp. 37-66;
118. and Topham, "The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine and Religious Monthlies in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain," in Cantor et al., Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical, pp. 67-90.
119. On the penny magazines see Anderson, Printed Image and the Transformation of Popular Culture, Chs. 2, 3, 5. By midcentury, some penny magazines reached circulations of half a million a week.
120. The changes in the methods and technologies of the entrepreneurial book publishers are discussed in Secord, Victorian Sensation (cit. n. 5), Ch. 2;
121. and Fyfe, Science and Salvation, Ch. 1.
122. For statistical analysis of the British book trade see the work of Simon Eliot: Eliot, Some Patterns and Trends in British Publishing (cit. n. 14);
123. Eliot, "Some Trends in British Book Production, 1800-1919," in Literature in the Market Place: Nineteenth-Century British Publishing and Reading Practices, ed. John O. Jordan and Robert L. Patten (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995), pp. 19-43;
124. Eliot, "Patterns and Trends and the NSTC: Some Initial Observations, Part I," Publishing Hist., 1997, 42:79-104;
125. and Eliot, "Patterns and Trends and the NSTC, Pt. II" (cit. n. 18).
126. See also Weedon, Victorian Publishing (cit. n. 14).
127. For a comparison between periodical and book output see Cantor et al., Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical, p. 10, Fig. 1.2.
128. For the increase in numbers of titles see the works by Eliot cited in note 28, above. Weedon provides print-run data, but her first figures are only from 1836. Average print runs at midcentury were over two and a half thousand, compared with the runs of a thousand usually assumed to be typical prior to the introduction of steam printing. See Weedon, Victorian Publishing, p. 49.
129. On the "Family Library" see Scott Bennett, "John Murray's Family Library and the Cheapening of Books in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain," Stud. Bibliog., 1976, 29:139-166.
130. On the "International Scientific Series", see Roy M. MacLeod, "Evolutionism, Internationalism, and Commercial Enterprise in Victorian Britain: The International Scientific Series, 1871-1910," in Development of Science Publishing in Europe, ed. Meadows (cit. n. 19), pp. 63-93;
131. and Leslie Howsam, "An Experiment with Science for the Nineteenth-Century Book Trade: The International Scientific Series," Brit. J. Hist. Sci., 2000, 33:187-207.
132. [John Crosse], "Review of Kosmos and Vestiges," Westminster Review, 1845, 44:152-202, on p. 153
133. (which targets Mary Somerville as well as John Herschel and William Whewell). Murray's "Family Library" (1830s) and "Home and Colonial Library" (1840s) were both mid-priced series. His "Reading for the Rail" (1851-1853) did offer shilling volumes but was even more short lived than the other series. Regarding the debates within learned societies see Jack Morrell and Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of Science: Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1981).
134. More details on all the writers mentioned in this paragraph can be found in their entries in Lightman, ed., Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists (cit. n. 21).
135. On the prevalence of minister-writers at the Religious Tract Society see Fyfe, Science and Salvation. Chs. 5-6.
136. On schoolteacher-writers at Chambers see Cooney, "Publishers for the People" (cit. n. 26), pp. 175-181.
137. On anonymous writing see Robert J. Griffin, "Anonymity and Authorship," New Literary History, 1999, 30:877-895;
138. and Griffin, ed., The Faces of Anonymity: Anonymous and Pseudonymous Publication from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century (London: Palgrave, 2003).
139. This group of full-time science writers expanded in the later nineteenth century, and their names became better known than those of the midcentury group. See Bernard Lightman, '"The Voices of Nature': Popularising Victorian Science," in Victorian Science in Context, ed. Lightman (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 187-211;
140. Lightman, "The Story of Nature: Victorian Popularizers and Scientific Narrative," Victorian Review, 1999, 25:1-29;
141. and Lightman, "The Visual Theology of Victorian Popularizers of Science: From Reverent Eye to Chemical Retina," Isis, 2000, 97:651-680.
142. On writing as a possible route for social advancement see Cross, Common Writer (cit. n. 9), Ch. 4;
143. and Fyfe, Science and Salvation, Ch. 5.
144. [Lewes], "Condition of Authors" (cit. n. 10), p. 286.
145. For clerical earnings, with comparisons to other professions, see Frances Knight, The Nineteenth-Century Church and English Society (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995), Ch. 4.
146. On Trollope see Victoria Glendinning, Trollope (London: Pimlico, 1992);
147. on other authors see Sutherland, Victorian Novelists and Publishers (cit. n. 9).
148. See Fyfe, Science and Salvation, pp. 212-213.
149. On the elder Martin see H. S. Torrens, "Martin, William (1767-1810)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/18216 [accessed 18 Jan. 2005], Biographical details in the article on the younger Martin in the new DNB are very scanty. Instead, see the information he and his wife provided to the Royal Literary Fund, available in their archive (this archive has been published by World Microfilms [1984]; it is hereafter cited as RLF). RLF 1315.1: W. Martin's application form, 9 Apr. 1853; and RFL 1315.53: M. J. Martin's application form, 1 Mar. 1864. In one of his applications to the Royal Literary Fund Martin claimed to be a licentiate of the "Apothecaries's Company"; see RLF 1315.46: W. Martin's application form, 30 Oct. 1863. There is, however, no record of him at Apothecaries Hall; my thanks to Anna Simmons for this information. On his appointment to the Zoological Society see Zoological Society Archive, London (hereafter cited as ZS), Minutes of Council, 20 Oct. 1830, p. 44 (see also 20 Apr. 1836, p. 418); and ZS, Minutes of the Museum Committee (hereafter cited as MMC), 25 Apr. 1836 (where Martin is allowed to continue at £100, despite the official salary for the assistant curator being set at £80).
150. On the Zoological Society see Henry Scherren, The Zoological Society of London: A Sketch of Its Foundation and Development (London: Cassell, 1905);
151. and P. Chalmers Mitchell, Centenary History of the Zoological Society of London (London: Zoological Society, 1929).
152. The only surviving volume of the ZS Museum Report Book (1833) contains Martin's daily reports on his and Gould's activities. Both institutional histories claim that Gould was in charge of the museum before 1836, but they appear to have been blinded by his subsequent rise to fame. See Mitchell, Centenary History, p. 98,
153. which is based on Scherren, Zoological Society, pp. 33, 53-54.
154. Specimens from the Beagle expedition were frequently discussed at the society in January 1837. Martin's description of a new Felis specimen appeared next to Gould's description of an unusual series of finches from the Galapagos Islands. See Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1837, 5:3-4;
155. see also Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin (London: Penguin, 1991), pp. 208-211.
156. On the identification of a new genus see W. C. L. Martin, "On a New Genus of Insectivorous Mammalia," Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, 1838, 2:249-256.
157. Martin's work pertaining to the move is described in ZS MMC, 16 Feb. 1836, 4 Apr. 1836. On the new staffing arrangements see ZS MMC, 10 Mar. 1836, 9 Apr. 1836; the qualifications desired in the curator are outlined in ZS MMC, 18 Mar. 1836. For the description of Martin see John Gould to William Jardine, 30 Apr. 1838, quoted in Sauer, John Gould, the Bird Man (cit. n. 4), p. 98.
158. On the appointment of Waterhouse see ZS MMC, 25 Apr. 1836; see also Desmond and Moore, Darwin, pp. 208-209.
159. On Martin's new - decreased - responsibilities see ZS MMC, 29 Dec. 1837. Gould had originally been paid per skin stuffed; see ZS MMC, 5 Mar. 1836. He was subsequently paid a salary of £50, with extra for stuffing, and tight restrictions were placed on his use of the society's time and resources; see ZS MMC, 20 Apr. 1836, 28 Apr. 1836. His resignation is noted in ZS MMC, 26 Jan. 1838; the decision to abolish two positions is recorded in ZS, Minutes of Council, 1 Aug. 1838.
160. RLF 1315.11: W. Martin to RLF, 16 Apr. 1853. On Waterhouse's new post see Desmond and Moore, Darwin (cit. n. 37), pp. 309-310. Waterhouse was replaced at the Zoological Society by Louis Fraser, who had previously been appointed clerk to the curator in 1836; see ZS MMC, 16 Apr. 1836. He was probably the other person who lost his position in the 1838/1839 cutbacks. In the interim, he had acted as naturalist on the Niger expedition (1841-1842). This presumably made him more attractive as curator than Martin.
161. The identification of Martin's anonymous works for the RTS is straightforward: Popular Introduction to the Study of Quadrupeds (1833);
162. and Introduction to the Study of Birds (1835).
163. His claim to have written three volumes of the "Library of Entertaining Knowledge" (RLF 1315.8: List of Works 1833-, n.d. [ca. 1853]) for the SDUK is more difficult to verify, since he is not mentioned in the SDUK archives. Given his field of expertise, I believe he wrote three of the four Menageries volumes. The archives attribute these to no particular author, and they were supervised by Charles Knight, the editor of the Penny Magazine. See Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge Archives, University College, London (hereafter cited as SDUK), Entertaining Knowledge Committee Minutes, 1831-33, esp. 6 May 1831; and SDUK, Publications Committee Minutes, 1833-38, esp. 28 Feb. 1833, 4 Mar. 1833, 23 Mar. 1836.
164. The permission for the sale of the Menageries volumes is recorded in ZS, Minutes of Council, 7 Sept. 1831. That this was a rare privilege is indicated in Sofia Åkerberg, "Knowledge and Pleasure at Regent's Park: The Gardens of the Zoological Society of London during the Nineteenth Century" (Ph.D. diss., Umea Univ., 2001), Ch. 4.
165. The dates of Martin's three Menageries volumes are uncertain because I am not completely sure which of the volumes he wrote. On penny periodicals see Anderson, Printed Image and the Transformation of Popular Culture (cit. n. 26), Ch. 2;
166. and Bennett, "Revolutions in Thought" (cit. n. 26). The Weekly Visitor later became the Visitor (issued monthly for 6d.), and Martin continued to write for it until it closed in 1851; he then wrote for its successor, the Leisure Hour (a penny weekly), until his death.
167. RLF 1315.7: George Waterhouse to RLF, 13 Apr. 1853. Identification of the publisher is based on RLF 1315.3: W. Martin to RLF, 11 Apr. 1853.
168. For biographical details see Congregational Year Book (1859); RLF 1385.1: Milner's application form, 7 July 1855; and RLF 1385.2: Milner to RLF, 7 July 1855.
169. Thomas Milner, History of the Seven Churches of Asia (Derby, 1830);
170. Milner, Life, Times, and Correspondence of Isaac Watts (London, 1834);
171. Milner, Sermons on Special Occasions (Northampton, 1837);
172. Milner, Sanctuary and Oratory (London, 1837);
173. and Milner, Astronomy and Scripture; or, Some Illustrations of That Science, and of the Solar, Lunar, and Terrestrial Phenomena of Holy Writ (London: John Snow, 1843), p. v. It is unclear how or when Milner became interested in the sciences, but he might have attended the lectures of the natural science professors while studying at Glasgow.
174. On evangelicals and the sciences see David W. Bebbington, "Science and Evangelical Theology in Britain from Wesley to Orr," in Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective, ed. David N. Livingstone, D. G. Hart, and Mark A. Noll (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), pp. 120-141.
175. On science and religion more generally see John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991);
176. and Brooke and Geoffrey Cantor, Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion: The Glasgow Gifford Lectures (Edinburgh: Clark, 1998).
177. The Gallery of Nature was reissued in 1848, 1852, 1855, 1860, and 1880. On Milner's books and his finances see RLF 1385.1: Milner's application form, 7 July 1855; compare RLF 1385.16: Milner's application form, 25 June 1868 (Mrs. Milner died in 1868).
178. The RTS published Milner's Australia: Its Scenery, Natural History, and Resources (1853).
179. The Crimea: Its Ancient and Modern History: The Khans, the Sultans, and the Czars (1855),
180. Russia: Its Rise and Progress, Tragedies, and Revolutions (1856), and
181. The Ottoman Empire (1856)
182. were all published by Longman. Other evangelical science writers are mentioned in Secord, Victorian Sensation (cit. n. 5), pp. 452-455;
183. and Fyfe, Science and Salvation, Ch. 5.
184. On evangelicals and the sciences see Livingstone et al., eds., Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective (cit. n. 46).
185. The Longman print runs are listed under the titles in the Miscellaneous Expenses ledger (A3) from 1854-56, Longman Archives, Reading University Library; I thank Michael Bott for this information. The circulation of the RTS "Monthly Volumes," in which Milner's and Martin's volumes appeared, was initially ten thousand copies - as recorded in RTS Annual Report 1846, p. 102 - but production was soon raised to fifteen thousand; see William Jones to Esther Copley, 12 Dec. 1846, RTS Correspondence, RTS Archives, School of Oriental and African Studies, London (hereafter cited as RTS).
186. Regarding payments for the "Monthly Volumes" see, e.g., Religious Tract Society Copyright Committee Minutes (hereafter cited as RTS CCM), 9 July 1845, 21 Jan. 1846, 17 Nov. 1847, 20 Feb. 1850. Milner was originally to be paid £120 for the History of Rome, but he requested an increase; see RTS CCM, 23 Feb. 1848, 19 Apr. 1848. On the SDUK payments see Bennett, "Revolutions in Thought" (cit. n. 26), pp. 160-161.
187. RLF 1241.2: Thomas Dick to RLF, n.d. [1850]. On Dick see Astore, Observing God (cit. n. 21).
188. For a contemporary account of the different methods of publishing see "Authors and Publishers [1]" (cit. n. 10);
189. and "Authors and Publishers [2]," New Quart. Rev., 1854, 3:143-150.
190. Gosse's literary earnings are given in incredible detail in Richard Broke Freeman and Douglas Wertheimer, eds., Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography (Folkestone: Dawson, 1980);
191. on the individual books see p. 6. On his realization in the wake of The Ocean that selling copyright was not a good strategy see Thwaite, Glimpses of the Wonderful, pp. 116-117.
192. For Gosse's own valuation of his income see Thwaite, Glimpses of the Wonderful, ibid., p. 255.
193. On his life, Thwaite's book corrects the dour impression given by Gosse's son: Edmund Gosse, Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments (1907; Keele: Ryburn, 1994).
194. For an introduction to using publishers' archives see Weedon, Victorian Publishing (cit. n. 14), Ch. 1.
195. On payments by periodicals in the 1830s see Cooney, "Publishers for the People" (cit. n. 26), pp. 94-95. On RTS rates in the 1840s see RTS CCM, 20 Jan. 1847.
196. RLF 1315.13: W. Martin's application form, 1 June 1854; and RLF 1385.2: Milner to RLF, 7 July 1855.
197. RLF 1315.3: W. Martin to RLF, 11 Apr. 1853; and RLF 1315.47: M. J. Martin to RLF, 30 Oct. 1863.
198. RLF 1385.2: Milner to RLF, 7 July 1855. Martin endured the bankruptcies of Baldwin, Cradock & Joy in 1837/1838 and of Whitehead & Company in 1840; Milner was affected by the bankruptcies of W. S. Orr in 1854, William Freeman of Fleet Street in 1857/1858, and W. & R. McPhun of Glasgow in the mid 1870s. Orr's bankruptcy is discussed in William Chambers, Memoir of Robert Chambers with Autobiographical Reminiscences (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1872), Ch. 13.
199. No correspondence with Longman survives, but the payments (of £160 in total) are recorded in the Miscellaneous Expenses ledger (A3) from 1854-56, Longman Archives. The final payment for The Baltic was on 2 Oct. 1854, just days before Orr's bankruptcy; my thanks to Michael Bott for checking this.
200. For the proposal for the volumes on the British Isles see RTS CCM, 20 Sept. 1854, 18 Oct. 1854. Only three of the volumes of Our Home Islands appeared, in 1857, 1858, and 1860. Milner's family moved from a house that rented for £40 to one that cost only £26; see RLF 1385.2: Milner to RLF, 7 July 1855. The difficulties with his hand are described in RLF 1385.3: Thomas Aspray to RLF, 9 July 1855; see also RLF 1385.2: Milner to RLF, 7 July 1855. The RTS was sufficiently concerned about Milner's breakdown that it sent one of its editors to his Brixton home to inquire after his health; see RTS CCM, 19 Dec. 1855.
201. Martin's affiictions and his wife's struggles and fears about their fate are described in RLF 1315.28: M. J. Martin to RLF, May 1860; and RLF 1315.42: M. J. Martin to RLF, 18 Nov. 1862. Martin received £40 in 1859, then £30 a year for the next four years; his widow received £50 in 1864. See RLF 1315, passim. On gout in the early nineteenth century see Roy Porter and G. S. Rousseau, Gout: The Patrician Malady (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1988), Ch. 8.
202. Gosse had £14,000 of investments on his death, but it was mostly derived from his second wife's inheritance, according to Thwaite, Glimpses of the Wonderful, p. 293.
203. In contrast, successful novelists might be able to save enough to retire. Anthony Trollops did; see Glendinning, Trollope (cit. n. 34), esp. pp. 359-361.
204. [Kaye], "Pendennis: Literary Profession" (cit. n. 10), p. 371;
205. and RLF 1315.11: W. Martin to RLF, 16 Apr. 1853. On vocation see James A. Secord, "The Discovery of a Vocation: Darwin's Early Geology," Brit. J. Hist. Sci., 1991, 24:133-157.
206. The phrases come from "The Late Mrs. Esther Copley," Christian Spectator, 1851, p. 667;
207. and Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (London: Hutchison, 1987), p. 67 (regarding children's writer Jane Taylor).
208. Thomas Pearson, Infidelity: Its Aspects, Causes, and Agencies: Being the Prize Essay of the British Organization of the Evangelical Alliance (London: Partridge & Oakey, 1853), pp. 509, 505.
209. See also Thomas Arnold on "Christian tone," quoted in Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold DD., 2 vols. (London: Fellowes, 1844), Vol. 1, p. 252.
210. On the concept of "safe science" see Topham, "Science and Popular Education in the 1830s" (cit. n. 26).
211. For examples of science publishing that were decidedly not "safe" see Adrian Desmond, "Artisan Resistance and Evolution in Britain, 1819-1848," Osiris, 1987, N.S., 3:72-110.
212. For more on the combination of spiritual and secular see Fyfe, Science and Salvation, Chs. 2, 3.
213. Dick was forced to leave the church under rather less salubrious circumstances than Milner's retirement. See William J. Astore, "Observing God: Thomas Dick (1774-1857), Evangelicalism, and Popular Science in Victorian Britain and Antebellum America" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. Oxford, 1995), Sect. 2.2.
214. Milner, Astronomy and Scripture (cit. n. 45), pp. 371, 370;
215. and Thomas Milner, The Gallery of Nature: A Pictorial and Descriptive Tour through Creation, Illustrative of the Wonders of Astronomy, Physical Geography, and Geology (London: Orr, 1846), pp. 188-191 (on the nebular hypothesis), 784-788 (on reconciling evidence from geology with Christian faith).
216. By the 1850s, the nebular hypothesis was mentioned in later editions of the Gallery as a theory discredited by the earl of Rosse's observations; see Milner, The Gallery of Nature: A Pictorial and Descriptive Tour through Creation, Illustrative of the Wonders of Astronomy, Physical Geography, and Geology, rev. ed. (London: Orr [?], 1855), pp. 188-189.
217. On Rosse see Simon Schaffer, "The Nebular Hypothesis and the Science of Progress," in History, Humanity, and Evolution, ed. James R. Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989), pp. 131-164;
218. and Schaffer, "On Astronomical Drawing," in Picturing Science, Producing Art, ed. Caroline A. Jones and Peter Galison (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 441-474, esp. pp. 456-468
219. . On Vestiges and the nebular hypothesis see Secord, Victorian Sensation (cit. n. 5), pp. 9-10, 386-387.
220. The RTS campaign to Christianize popular science, with which Milner and Martin were both involved, is discussed in Fyfe, Science and Salvation, Ch. 2.
221. Concerns about the dangerous implications of the sciences had existed since at least the 1820s (see L. S. Jacyna, "Immanence and Transcendence: Theories of Life and Organization in Britain, 1790-1835," Isis, 1983, 74:311-329;
222. and Desmond, "Artisan Resistance" [cit. n. 64]),
223. but they were greatly exacerbated by the increased output of the book trade in the 1840s. See Aileen Fyfe, "Expertise and Christianity: High Standards versus the Free Market in Popular Publishing," in Science and Beliefs: From Natural Philosophy to Natural Science, 1700-1900, ed. David M. Knight and Matthew D. Eddy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).
224. On the theological strategies of slightly later science writers see Lightman, "Visual Theology of Victorian Popularizers of Science" (cit. n. 33).
225. On Martin's use of the Bible as a source of information see, e.g., the beginnings of William Martin, Our Domestic Fowls (London: RTS, 1847);
226. and Martin, British Fish and Fisheries (London: RTS, 1849).
227. He was proposed as a member by George O'Gorman (elected in 1840) and Thomas Lee (elected in 1839); see his Certificate of Election, Royal Geographical Society Archives, London. My thanks to Sarah Strong for checking this for me.
228. RLF 1385.2: Milner to RLF, 7 July 1855. On the status Gosse's election to
229. The SDUK connection is a guess, but Vigors was on the SDUK publications committee at the same time that he was on the Zoological Society committee to which Martin reported. On Gould see Sauer, John Gould, the Bird Man (cit. n. 4);
230. Tree, Ruling Passion of John Gould (cit, n. 4) (Gould's lifelong need of a secretary is noted on p. 8);
231. and Barbara Mearns and Richard Mearns, The Bird Collectors (San Diego, Calif.: Academic, 1998), Ch. 7.
232. Contrast Gosse, whose first wife's small inheritance meant that he did not need to be writing constantly. On his free afternoons see Thwaite, Glimpses of the Wonderful, pp. 156-157, 163.
233. The RTS refused a book but took an article that appeared in Leisure Hour, 22 Apr. 1852; see RTS CCM, 21 May 1851. H. G. Bohn published William Martin, A General History of Humming-Birds, or the Trochilidae: With Especial Reference to the Collection of J Gould, FRS &c Now Exhibiting in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London (London: Bohn, 1852).
234. On Gould's hummingbirds see Mearns and Mearns, Bird Collectors (cit. n. 71), pp. 149-150;
235. and Sauer, John Gould, the Bird Man (cit. n. 4), pp. 129-130, 240-241.
236. RLF 1315.23: Gould to RLF, 2 Feb. 1859; RLF 1315.4: Richard Owen to RLF. 11 Apr. 1853; and RLF 1315.11: W. Martin to RLF, 16 Apr. 1853.
237. Unlike most of his works, the title page of A General Introduction to the Natural History of Mammiferous Animals announces his authorship: "By W. C. Linnaeus Martin, FLS."
238. The date of publication and the subject matter lead me to suspect that this is the work Whitehead had commissioned. Gosse's view of museum-based taxonomy - Martin's area of expertise - is made clear in Thwaite, Glimpses of the Wonderful, pp. 123-124.
239. Knight mentions The Pictorial Museum of Animated Nature and its intended audience in his memoirs; see Charles Knight, Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century: With a Prelude of Early Reminiscences, 3 vols. (1864-1865; London: Knight, 1873), Vol. 3, pp. 18-20.
240. RLF 1315.11: W. Martin to RLF, 16 Apr. 1853. Youatt's suicide is clear from his obituary in the London Times, 14 Jan. 1847, rpt. in John Clewlow, "The Death of William Youatt: An Update," Veterinary History, 2000, 10:14-15. Youatt had been medical superintendent of the Zoological Society's menagerie. I thank Ben Marsden for drawing Youatt to my attention.