"Beyond the pale of ordinary criticism" Eccentricity and the fossil books of Thomas Hawkins

ISIS

Volumn 98, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 225-265

  Carroll, Victoria ^a  

^a SCIENCE MUSEUM   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANIMAL; ARTICLE; BOOK; FOSSIL; HISTORY; REPTILE; UNITED KINGDOM;

ANIMALS; BOOKS; ENGLAND; FOSSILS; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; REPTILES;

EID: 34548149016     PISSN: 00211753     EISSN: 15456994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/518187     Document Type: Article

References (256)

1. Thomas Hawkins, The Book of the Great Sea-Dragons, Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, Gedolim Taninim, of Moses: Extinct Monsters of the Ancient Earth: With Thirty Plates, Copied from Skeletons in the Author's Collection of Fossil Organic Remains (Deposited in the British Museum) (London: William. Pickering, 1840) (hereafter cited as Hawkins, Sea-Dragons);
2. and Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Sea-Dragons, New Monthly Magazine, 1840, 59:429-431, on p. 429.
3. Thomas Hawkins, Memoirs of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, Extinct Monsters of the Ancient Earth, with Twenty-eight Plates Copied from Specimens in the Author's Collection of Fossil Organic Remains (London: Reife & Fletcher, 1834) (hereafter cited as Hawkins, Memoirs). A second edition of Memoirs, with some additions, was produced in 1835 (although it was dated 1834 on the title page). AU further references are to the first edition unless otherwise stated.
4. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, 1834, no. 910, pp. 444-445, on p. 444;
5. and Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, New Month. Mag., 1834, 42:240-242, on p. 240.
6. The second review was probably written by the editor of the New Monthly Magazine, S. C. Hall.
7. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, New Month. Mag., p. 240;
8. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Lit. Gaz., p. 445;
9. and Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Sea-Dragons, New Month. Mag., p. 431.
10. Arthur Bulleid, "Notes on the Life and Work of Thomas Hawkins F.G.S.," Somerset Archaeology and Natural History, 1943, 89:59-71.
11. An exception to this recent tendency to dismiss Hawkins is Ralph O'Connor, "Thomas Hawkins and Geological Spectacle," Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, 2003, 114:221-241
12. See also O'Connor, "The Poetics of Geology: A Science and Its Literature in Britain, 1802-1856" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. Cambridge, 2003);
13. and O'Connor, The Greatest Show on Earth: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, in press). O'Connor does not analyze Hawkins's books specifically in terms of their perceived eccentricity. However, I have found his work extremely helpful, especially as regards placing Hawkins's books within the wider context of geological literature in the period.
14. An exception is Brian Cowlishaw's doctoral dissertation, "A Genealogy of Eccentricity" (Univ. Oklahoma, 1998). Cowlishaw's thesis is discussed further in my own doctoral dissertation: Victoria Carroll, "Science and Eccentricity in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain" (Univ. Cambridge, 2006).
15. I also explore the theme of eccentricity in more depth there. On eccentricity in nineteenth-century France see Miranda Gill's unpublished doctoral dissertation, "Eccentricity and the Cultural Imagination in Nineteenth-Century France" (Univ. Oxford, 2004).
16. For an example of die psychological approach see Jamie James and David Weeks, Eccentrics (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995).
17. Hawkins's tendency to mix genres has been noted in O'Connor, "Poetics of Geology" (cit. n. 5), Ch. 4. However, O'Connor does not analyze this explicitly in connection with the perceived eccentricity of Hawkins's works.
18. Although many variations and some alternatives have been offered, this basic formulation is widely accepted. Works on genre that I have found helpful include Gérard Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, trans. J. E. Lewin (French ed., 1987; Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997);
19. Donald McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (London: British Library, 1986);
20. Michel Riffaterre, Text Production, trans. T. Lyons (French ed., 1979; New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1983);
21. and Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1975).
22. For an alternative, ahistorical theory of genre see, e.g., Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1957), pp. 131-223. Frye argues that genres are "archetypal" manifestations of universal, unchanging characteristics of the human imagination.
23. Hawkins, Memoirs, p. iii;
24. and [Percival Lord], rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Athenaeum, 1834, 347:469-470, on p. 469.
25. For applications of rhetorical analysis to scientific writing see, e.g., Roland Barthes, Writing Degree Zero, trans. A. Lavers and C. Smith (London: Cape, 1967);
26. Charles Bazerman, Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science (Madison: Univ. Wisconsin Press, 1988);
27. Andrew Benjamin, Geoffrey Cantor, and John R. R. Christie, eds., The Figural and the Literal: Problems of Language in the History of Science and Philosophy, 1630-1800 (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1987);
28. Peter Dear, ed., The Literary Structure of Scientific Argument (Philadelphia: Univ. Pennsylvania Press, 1991);
29. Alan Gross, The Rhetoric of Science (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1990);
30. and Greg Myers, Writing Biology: Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge (Madison: Univ. Wisconsin Press, 1990).
31. See, e.g., Marina Frasca-Spada and Nick Jardine, eds., Books and the Sciences in History (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000);
32. Louise Henson et al., eds., Culture and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Media (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004);
33. and Jonathan R. Topham, "Scientific Publishing and the Reading of Science in Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Historiographical Survey and Guide to Sources," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2000, 31A:559-612.
34. This research on the production, circulation, and reception of scientific books has drawn heavily on work in the field of book history. See, e.g., Richard Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800-1900 (1957; Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 1998);
35. Roger Chartier, The Order of Books (Cambridge: Polity, 1994);
36. Robert Darnton, "What Is the History of Books?" in The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History (London: Faber & Faber, 1990), Ch. 1;
37. Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979);
38. Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1998);
39. and William St. Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004).
40. For the original paper see Stuart Hall, "Encoding and Decoding in Television Discourse," Stencilled Paper 7 (Birmingham: Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1973). An extract has been widely circulated: Hall, "Encoding/Decoding," in Culture, Media, Language, ed. Hall et al. (London: Hutchinson, 1980), pp. 128-162.
41. On audiences and the media see, e.g., Ien Ang, Desperately Seeking the Audience (London: Routledge, 1991);
42. David Morley, Television, Audiences, and Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 1992);
43. and Roger Silverstone, Television and Everyday Life (London: Routledge, 1994).
44. Results include Wayne Booth's "implied reader": Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1961);
45. Gérard Genette's "narratee": Genette, Narrative Discourse, trans. J. E. Lewin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980);
46. Stanley Fish's "interpretive communities": Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1980);
47. and Hans-Robert Jauss's "horizon of expectations" - his term for the set of cultural, ethical, and literary expectations that form the basis on which literary works are both produced and received: Jauss, Towards an Aesthetics of Reception, trans. T. Bahti (Minneapolis: Univ. Minnesota Press, 1982).
48. For an overview of approaches to audience-oriented literary criticism see, e.g., James Raven, Helen Small, and Naomi Tadmor, The Practice and Representation of Reading in England (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996), pp. 1-21;
49. Susan Suleiman and Inge Grossman, The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980);
50. and Jane Tompkins, Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1980).
51. Simplistic models according to which science is "dumbed down" for a lay audience have been severely challenged. See, e.g., Stephen Hilgartner, "The Dominant View of Popularization: Conceptual Problems, Political Uses," Social Studies of Science, 1990, 20:519-539.
52. Science communication is now understood as an active process, often involving the collaborative input of many individuals. See, e.g., Roger Silverstone, Framing Science: The Making of a BBC Documentary (London: BFI Publishing, 1985). Mass media research has increasingly explored science communication in terms of dynamic relationships between scientists, the media, and complex audiences.
53. See, e.g., David Miller et al., The Circuit of Mass Communication: Media Strategies, Representation, and Audience Reception in the AIDS Crisis (London: Sage, 1998).
54. On audiences for science in the past see, e.g., Aileen Fyfe and Bernard Lightman, eds., Science in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-Century Sites and Experiences (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, in press).
55. James A. Secord, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago/London: Univ. Chicago Press, 2000).
56. On mesmerism, see Alison Winter, Mezmerised: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1998);
57. on phrenology see, e.g., Roger Cooter, The Cultural, Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organisation of Consent in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984);
58. on psychical research see, e.g., Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985);
59. on invisible technicians see Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1994);
60. on artisan collectors see Anne Secord, "Science in the Pub: Artisan Botanists in Early Nineteenth-Century Lancashire," History of Science, 1994, 32:269-315.
61. Edward Charlesworth, in Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 1840, 4(Appendix): 11-44, on p. 16;
62. Thomas Hawkins, My Life and Works etc. (London: Chiswick, 1887);
63. and Mike Taylor, "Joseph Clark III's Reminiscences about the Somerset Fossil Reptile Collector Thomas Hawkins (1810-1889)," Somerset Archaeol. Nat. Hist., 2002, 146:1-10, on pp. 5, 3.
64. See also Taylor, "Thomas Hawkins," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004-2006).
65. Robert Recorde, The Castle of Knowledge, Containing the Explication of the Sphere Both Celestiall and Materiall, etc. (London, 1556), p. 247;
66. Richard Savage, "The Bastard" (1728), in The Works of Richard Savage, ed. S. Johnson (London: Printed for T. Evans, 1777), pp. 91-95, on p. 91;
67. and John Dryden, The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards (London: Printed by T. N. for Henry Herringnan, 1672), p. 58.
68. Aaron Hill, The Fanciad: An Heroic Poem (London: Printed for J. Osborn, 1743), p. 27;
69. and Sara Scheduler Genuth, Comets, Popular Culture, and the Birih of Modern Cosmology (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1997), p. 3. While cometary prognostication had lost much of its prestige among the scientific elite by the latter part of the seventeenth century, the notion that comets could affect life on earth through physical means persisted: Newton, for example, argued that comets periodically restored the earth's fertility.
70. See Simon Schaffer, "Newton's Comets and the Transformation of Astrology," in Astrology, Science, and Society: Historical Essays, ed. Patrick Curry (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1987), pp. 219-243, on pp. 234-235. Meanwhile, cometary divination continued to be practiced by astrologers and almanac compilers and remained popular among the lower classes into the nineteenth century and beyond.
71. See Curry, A Confusion of Prophets: Victorian and Edwardian Astrology (London: Collins & Brown, 1992);
72. John Harrison, The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism, 1780-1850 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1979);
73. and Maureen Perkins, Visions of the Future: Almanacs, Time, and Cultural Change, 1775-1870 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996).
74. Frances Burney, Evelina; or, A Young Lady's Entrance into the World (1778) (Chadwyck-Healey Eighteenth-Century Fiction Full-Text Database, 1996), p. 72.
75. On gender in Burney's novels see Barbara Zonitch, Familiar Violence: Gender and Social Upheaval in the Novels of Frances Burney (London: Associated Univ. Presses, 1997).
76. Maria Edgeworth, Belinda (1801) (Chadwyck-Healey Nineteenth-Century Fiction Full-Text Database, 1999), pp. 18-19;
77. and Thomas Carlyle, "Jean Paul F. Richter," Edinburgh Review, 1827, 46:176-195, on p. 191.
78. For more on eccentricity and genius see Carroil, "Science and Eccentricity" (cit. n. 6), pp. 47-50.
79. On genius and the sciences in the Romantic period see Simon Schaffer, "Genius in Romantic Natural Philosophy," in Romanticism and the Sciences, ed. Nick Jardine and Andrew Cunningham (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), pp. 82-98.
80. For more on this see Carroll, "Science and Eccentricity," Ch. 1.
81. Anon., Eccentric Biography; or, Sketches of Remarkable Characters, Ancient and Modern, Including Potentates, Statesmen, Divines, Historians, Naval and Military Heroes, Philosophers, Lawyers, Impostors, Poets, Painters, Players, Dramatic Writers, Misers, &c. &c. &c: The Whole. Alphabetically Arranged; and Forming a Pleasing Delineation of the Singularity, Whim, Folly, Caprice, &c. &c. of the Human Mind: Ornamented with Portraits of the Most Singular Characters Noticed in the Work (London: Vernor & Hood, 1801);
82. G. H. Wilson, The Eccentric Mirror: Reflecting a Faithful and Interesting Delineation of Male and Female Characters, Ancient and Modern, Who Have Been Particularly Distinguished by Extraordinary Qualifications, Talents, and Propensities, Natural or Acquired, Comprehending Singular Instances of Longevity, Conformation, Bulk, Stature, Powers of Mind and of Body, Wonderful Exploits, Adventures, Habits, Propensities, Enterprising Pursuits, &c. &c. &c, 4 vols. (London: J. Cundee, 1806);
83. and Anon., The Eccentric Magazine; or, Lives and Portraits of Remarkable Characters, 4 vols. (London: G. Smeeton, 1812).
84. E.g., R. S. Kirby, Kirby's Wonderful and Eccentric Museum; or, Magazine of Remarkable Characters, 6 vols. (London: R. S. Kirby, 1820);
85. Anon., Eccentric Biography; or, Lives of Extraordinary Characters etc. (London: Thomas Tegg, 1826);
86. Frederick Fairholt, Remarkable and Eccentric Characters etc. (London: Richard Bentley, 1849);
87. William Russell, Eccentric Personages, 2 vols. (London: John Maxwell, 1864);
88. and John Timbs, English Eccentrics and Eccentricities, 2 vols. (London: Richard Bentley, 1866).
89. I discuss the genre of eccentric biography in depth in Carroll, "Science and Eccentricity" (cit. n. 6), Ch. 1. The relationship between eccentricity and liminality is also explored there in much greater detail.
90. Kirby, Kirby's Wonderful and Eccentric Museum (cit. n. 25), Vol. 6, pp. 488-489.
91. On freak shows see, e.g., Richard Altick, The Shows of London (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, Belknap, 1978);
92. Barbara Benedict, Curiosity: A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry (Chicago/London: Univ. Chicago Press, 2001);
93. Robert Bogdan, Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit (Chicago/London: Univ. Chicago Press, 1988);
94. and Helen Deutsch and Felicity Nussbaum, eds., "Defects": Engendering the Modern Body (Ann Arbor: Univ. Michigan Press, 2000).
95. John Timbs, Eccentricities of the Animal Creation (London: Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, 1869).
96. Hawkins's medical training is discussed in Taylor, "Thomas Hawkins" (cit. n. 18). Hawkins mentions his father's death in Hawkins, Memoirs, p. v.
97. On Hawkins's life and collecting practices see Bulleid, "Notes on the Life and Work of Thomas Hawkins F.G.S." (cit. n. 5);
98. Christopher McGowan, The Dragon Seekers (Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2001);
99. Mike Taylor, "Thomas Hawkins FGS," Geological Curator, 1987, 5:112-114;
100. and Taylor, "Thomas Hawkins of 'The Great Sea Dragons': The Isle of Wight Connection," Geological Society of the Isle of Wight Newsletter; 1997, 1(5):5-10.
101. Hawkins, Memoirs, 2nd ed., p. 53; and Gideon Mantell to Benjamin Silliman, 18 June 1834,
102. cited in Dennis R. Dean, Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999), p. 140.
103. Georges Cuvier, Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles, où l'on rétablit les caractères de plusieurs animaux dont les révolutions du globe ont détruit les espèces, 5 vols. (Paris: Dufour & d'Ocagne, 1821-1824), Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 444.
104. On Anning's finding of the "first" ichthyosaur see Hugh. Torrens, "Mary Anning (1799-1847) of Lyme: "The Greatest Fossilist the World Ever Knew,'" British Journal for the History of Science, 1995, 28:257-284, on p. 259.
105. See also S. R. Howe, T. Sharpe, and H. S. Torrens, Ichthyosaurs: A History of Fossil "Sea-Dragons" (Cardiff: National Museum of Wales, 1981).
106. Everard Home, "Some Account of the Fossil Remains of an Animal More Nearly Allied to Fishes than Any of the Other Classes of Animals," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1814, pp. 571-577. In 1819 Home changed his mind and named the animal "Proteosauras, " arguing that it was a link between reptiles and the recently discovered Proteus, but his argument was rejected.
107. See Home, "An Account of the Fossil Skeleton of the Proteo-saurus," ibid., 1819, pp. 209-211;
108. and Home, "Reasons for Giving the Name Proteo-saurus to the Fossil Skeleton Which Has Been Described," ibid., pp. 212-216.
109. Henry De la Beche and William Conybeare, "Notice of the Discovery of a New Fossil Animal, Forming a Link between the Ichthyosaurus and Crocodile, Together with General Remarks on the Osteology of the Ichthyosaurus," Transactions of the Geological Society of London, 1821, 5:559-594, on pp. 562, 560;
110. William. Buckland, "Notice on the Megalosaurus or Great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield," ibid., Ser. 2, 1824, 1:390-396;
111. and Gideon Mantell, "Notice on the Iguanodon, a Newly Discovered Fossil Reptile, from the Sandstone of Tilgate Forest, in Sussex," Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, 1825, 115:179-186.
112. Hawkins, Memoirs, 2nd ed., p. 53 (groaning drawers);
113. and Hawkins, Memoirs, pp. 32 (on Moon), 25 (on Charmouth), 12-13 (on the Lyme skeleton).
114. McGowan, Dragon Seekers (cit. n. 29), pp. 127-137.
115. The propriety of filling in gaps in specimens was contested. Anning, for instance, wrote that Hawkins was "such, an enthusiast that he makes things as he imagines they ought to be; and not as they are really found": cited ibid, p. 139. Gideon Mantell wrote: "I think it is objectionable when art is allowed to interfere so far," but he conceded that Hawkins "does not do this without authority."
116. See E. Curwen, ed., The Journal of Gideon Mantell, Surgeon and Geologist: Covering the Years 1818-1852 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1940), p. 111.
117. Hawkins writes that his specimen was prepared by "a trusty Lucchese": Hawkins, Memoirs, p. 13.
118. This is presumably the Italian sculptor referred to by Mantell in a letter to Silliman of 18 Jan. 1834, cited in Dean, Gideon Mantell (cit. n. 30), p. 144 n.
119. Hawkins, Memoirs, 2nd ed., p. 53.
120. Ibid., p. 54 (fate sealed);
121. Curwen, ed., Journal, of Gideon Mantell (cit. n. 35);
122. R. Owen, The Life of Richard Owen, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1894), Vol. 1, pp. 165-166;
123. and Mantell to Silliman, 18 Jan. 1834, cited in Dean, Gideon Mantell (cit. n. 30), p. 139.
124. Hawkins, Memoirs, 2nd ed., p. 54.
125. Richard Yeo, Defining Science: William Whewell, Natural Knowledge, and Public Debate in Early Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), pp. 77-87.
126. C. Darcy, "The Gentleman's Magazine," in British Literary Magazines: The Romantic Age, 1789-1836, ed. Alvin Sullivan (Westport, Conn./London: Greenwood, 1983), pp. 136-140;
127. Robert Duncan, "The Literary Gazette," ibid., pp. 242-246;
128. and D. Spurgeon, "The Athenaeum," ibid., pp. 21-24.
129. Walter Houghton, ed., The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals (Toronto: Univ. Toronto Press, 1979), Vol. 3, pp. 161-172;
130. and Lance Schachterle, "The Metropolitan Magazine," in British Literary Magazines, ed. Sullivan, pp. 304-308.
131. For the circulation figures see Duncan, "Literary Gazette," p. 243;
132. Spurgeon, "Athenaeum," p. 21;
133. and Houghton, ed., Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, Vol. 3, p. 166.
134. Hawkins, Memoirs, 2nd ed., p. viii.
135. Edward Copleston, Advice to a Young Reviewer, with a Specimen of the Art (Oxford, 1807), p. 2.
136. This satirical and extremely funny pamphlet was produced anonymously; authorship is attributed in Yeo, Defining Science (cit. n. 40), p. 78,
137. and elsewhere. On contemporary intellectual debates about the nature of criticism see, e.g., M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (1953; Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971);
138. and Jon Klancher, "British Theory and Criticism.: Romantic Period and Early Nineteenth Century," in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, ed. Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1997).
139. On reviewing see Patrick Parrinder, Authors and Authority: A Study of English Literary Criticism and Its Relation to Culture, 1750-1900 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977);
140. and William Rowland, literature and the Marketplace: Romantic Writers and Their Audiences in Great Britain and the United States (Lincoln/London: Univ. Nebraska Press, 1996).
141. Genette, Paratexts, trans. Lewin (cit. n. 9), p. 1.
142. Hawkins, Memoirs, p. v.
143. In thinking about the role of preconceptions in shaping interpretations I have been influenced by Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall (1960; London: Sheed & Ward, 1989).
144. Genette, Paratexts, trans. Lewin (cit. n. 9), p. 75.
145. Thomas Ashe, Memoirs of Mammoth: And Various Other Extraordinary and Stupendous Bones, of Incognita, or Non-Descript Animals: Found in the Vicinity of the Ohio, etc. (Liverpool: Printed by G. F. Harris, 1806);
146. Thomas Weaver, "Memoir on the Geological Relations of the East of Ireland," Trans. Geol. Soc. London, 1821, 5:117-304;
147. Peter Martin, A Geological Memoir on Part of Western Sussex: With Some Observations upon Chalk-Basins, the Weald-Denudation, and Outliers-by- Protrusion (London, 1828);
148. Hawkins, Memoirs, p. v;
149. and Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Metropolitan Magazine, 1834, 11, Appendix pp. 1-2, on p. 1.
150. This information was provided by Andrew Mussell, Archivist to the Geological Society, in personal correspondence.
151. Mantell to Silliman, Feb. 1833, Jan. 1834, cited in Dean, Gideon Mantell (cit. n. 30), p. 139.
152. On Buckland's efforts see McGowan, Dragon Seekers (cit. n. 29), p. 133.
153. Hawkins, Memoirs, n.p. (dedication to Buckland), p. 37 (dedication to Conybeare);
154. and Thomas Hawkins to William Buckland, 2 July 1834, rpt. in Hawkins, Memoirs, 2nd ed., p. 55.
155. Henry De la Beche, A Geological Manual (London, 1831);
156. William Phillips, Guide to Geology (London: Longman et alia, 1834);
157. William Conybeare and Phillips, Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales, with an Introductory Compendium of the General Principles of That Science (London: Phillips, 1822);
158. and Anon., "Mineral Kingdom," Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1833, 2:347-349.
159. On the variety of geological works available see O'Connor, "Poetics of Geology" (cit. n. 5), pp. 126-142.
160. Mantell to Silliman, 18 June 1834, cited in Dean, Gideon Mantell (cit. n. 30), pp. 139-140;
161. and Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Magazine of Natural, History, 1834, 7:476-479, on p. 477.
162. Cuvier, Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles (cit. n. 31);
163. and De la Beche and Conybeare, "Notice of the Discovery of a New Fossil Animal" (cit. n. 33).
164. Hawkins, Memoirs, p. 43.
165. De la Beche and Conybeare, "Notice of the Discovery of a New Fossil Animal" (cit. n. 33), p. 582.
166. Roland Barthes has called this type of language "writing at the zero degree": Barthes, Writing Degree Zero, trans. Lavers and Smith (cit. n. 11).
167. Cuvier, Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles (cit. n. 31), Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 458 ("It appears clear to me that the two bones which I have just described are the temporal and the tympanic ones");
168. and De la Beche and Conybeare, "Notice on the Discovery of a New Fossil Animal" (cit. n. 33), p. 582.
169. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Lit. Gaz., p. 445;
170. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Mag. Nat. Hist., pp. 477, 478;
171. and [William Weddall], rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Gentleman's Magazine, N.S., 2:121-124, on p. 123.
172. On Weddall see Anon., "William Langstaff Weddall," ibid., 1851, p. 446.
173. Hawkins, Memoirs, 2nd ed., p. 53;
174. Hawkins, Memoirs, p. v;
175. and Elizabeh Gordon, The Life and Correspondence of William Buckland (London: John Murray, 1894), p. 26.
176. On the heroic in nineteenth-century geology see Marianne Somer, "The Romantic Cave? The Scientific and Poetic Quests for Subterranean Spaces in Britain," Earth Sciences History, 2003, 22:172-208.
177. Hawkins, Memoirs, p. 33.
178. Ibid.
179. On the historical development of the pastoral see James Sambrook, English Pastoral Poetry (Boston: Twayne, 1983).
180. On the pastoral in nineteenth-century poetry see John Barrell, The Idea of Landscape and the Sense of Place, 1730-1840: An Approach to the Poetry of John Clare (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1972);
181. and Jonathan Bate, Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition (London: Routledge, 1991).
182. John Clare, "Maggy's Repentance," in The Village Minstrel and Other Poems (London: Taylor & Hessey, 1821).
183. Hawkins, Memoirs, p. 33.
184. [Weddall], rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Gentleman's Mag., p. 123;
185. and Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Sea-Dragons, Met. Mag., 1840, 28:114-115.
186. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Met. Mag., Appendix p. 2;
187. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, New Month. Mag., p. 241;
188. and William Conybeare to Buckland, 4 July 1834,
189. quoted in Howe et al., Ichthyosaurs (cit. n. 31), p. 22.
190. Hugh Miller, The Old Red Sandstone; or, New Walks in an Old Field (Edinburgh: John Johnstone, 1841);
191. O'Connor, Greatest Show on Earth (cit. n. 5), p. 177;
192. [Weddall], rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Gentleman's Mag., p. 123;
193. and Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Mag. Nat. Hist., p. 477.
194. Hawkins, Memoirs, p. 33.
195. Martin Rudwick, Scenes from Deep Time: Early Pictorial Representations of the Prehistoric World (Chicago/London: Univ. Chicago Press, 1992).
196. The lithograph, based on a watercolor by De la Beche, was made by the engraver George Scharf; see Rudwick, Scenes from Deep Time, pp. 42-48.
197. A few years earlier, in 1822, Conybeare had produced a lithographed cartoon showing William Buckland entering an antediluvian hyena's den: ibid., p. 41.
198. This depicted only one species (in addition to the human time-traveler) and was intended as a joke rather than as a serious representation of the prehistoric world. On representations of scenes from deep time in popular shows and spectacles see Altick, Shows of London (cit. n. 27), p. 136 and passim.
199. Anon., "Organic Remains Restored," Penny Mag., 1833, 2:409-410;
200. Rudwick, Scenes from Deep Time, p. 65;
201. and Hawkins, Memoirs, p. 51.
202. Marianne Sommer has used the metaphor of the conjurer to describe die "gift" that was sometimes perceived to be necessary for making sense of fossil-containing caves and using them to evoke the deep past: Sommer, "Romantic Cave?" (cit. n. 60), p. 193.
203. On perceived affiliations between natural history and antiquarianism see, e.g., Martin Rudwick, "The Emergence of a Visual Language for Geological Science, 1760-1840," Hist. Sci., 1976, 14:149-195;
204. and James Paradis, "The Natural Historian as Antiquary of the World: Hugh Miller and the Rise of Literary Natural History," in Hugh Miller and the Controversies of Victorian Science, ed. Michael Shortland (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), pp. 122-150.
205. Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology (1830-1833; London: Penguin, 1997), p. 7;
206. and Hawkins, Sea-Dragons, p. 15.
207. Hawkins, Sea-Dragons, p. 15.
208. Martin Rudwick, "The Shape and Meaning of Earth History," in God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Berkeley: Univ. California Press, 1986), pp. 296-321, on p. 312.
209. Charles Lyell, in a lecture delivered at King's College London, 4 May 1832, cited in James R. Moore, "Geologists and Interpreters of Genesis in the Nineteenth Century," in God and Nature, ed. Lindberg and Numbers, pp. 322-350, on p. 337.
210. On the professionalization of geology see, e.g., Roy Porter, "Gentlemen and Geology: The Emergence of a Scientific Career, 1660-1920," Historical Journal, 1978, 21:809-836.
211. Examples of scriptural geology include A Short Introduction to the Study of Geology (1817) by the Methodist clergyman Joseph Sutcliffe;
212. A Geological Survey of the Yorkshire Coast by the Presbyterian clergyman George Young (1822);
213. Granville Penn's Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies (1822);
214. and George Bugg's Scriptural Geology (1826-1827): all cited in Nicolaas A. Rupke, The Great Chain of History: William Buckland and the English School of Geology (1814-1849) (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), pp. 43-47.
215. William Buckland, Reliquiae Diluvianae; or, Observations on the Organic Remains Contained in Caves, Fissures, and Diluvial Gravel, and on Other Geological Phenomena, Attesting the Action of an Universal Deluge (London: John Murray, 1823). Criticism, of Buckland is discussed in Rudwick, "Shape and Meaning of Earth History" (cit. n. 76), p. 313.
216. On diluvialism see, e.g., Rupke, Great Chain of History, pp. 29-107.
217. On Buckland's thoughts on the relationship between science and religion see his Vindiciae Geologicae; or, The Connexion of Geology with Religion (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1820)
218. and his Bridgewater Treatise, Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, 2 vols. (London: William Pickering, 1836).
219. On the Bridgewater Treatises see Jonathan R. Topham, "Beyond the 'Common Context' : The Production and Reading of the Bridgewater Treatises," Isis, 1998, 89:233-262.
220. Rudwick, "Shape and Meaning of Earth History," p. 312;
221. John Brooke and Geoffrey Cantor, Reconstructing Nature (Edinburgh: Clark, 1998), pp. 57-64;
222. and O'Connor, "Poetics of Geology" (cit. n. 5), Ch. 2.
223. I owe this point to Ralph O'Connor.
224. Hawkins, Sea-Dragons, pp. 15-16;
225. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Lit. Gaz., p. 445;
226. and Harrison, Second Coming (cit. n. 20).
227. The distinctions between actual and implied author, and actual and implied reader, were originally made by Wayne Booth: Booth, Rhetoric of Fiction (cit. n. 14). The implied author differs from the actual author in that he or she exists only in the work; similarly, the implied reader is created by the work and, in Booth's scheme, functions as an "ideal" interpreter.
228. See also Michel Foucault, "What Is an Author?" in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, ed. D. F. Bouchard (Oxford: Blackwell, 1977), pp. 113-138.
229. On the implied author in scientific writing see Mary B. Coney, "The Implied Author in Technical Discourse," Journal of Advanced Composition, 1988, 5:163-172.
230. Rosamond Wolff Purcell and Stephen Jay Gould, Finders, Keepers: Eight Collectors (London: Hutchinson Radius, 1992), pp. 95, 107. Again, an exception to the usual twentieth-century view is the work of Ralph O'Connor.
231. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Sea-Dragons, New Month. Mag., p. 430;
232. and Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Sea-Dragons, Met. Mag., p. 114.
233. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Met. Mag., Appendix p. 2;
234. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Sea-Dragons, ibid., p. 114;
235. and Anon., rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, New Month. Mag., p. 240.
236. On writing and madness see, e.g., Chris Wiesenthal, Figuring Madness
237. Robert Pollok, The Course of Time: A Poem in Ten Books, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1827);
238. Edwin Atherstone, The Fall of Nineveh: A Poem, 2 vols. (London: Baldwin & Craddock, 1828-1830);
239. Robert Montgomery, Satan: A Poem (London: Maudner, 1830);
240. and John Edmund Reade, The Deluge, a Drama, in Twelve Scenes (London: Saunders & Otley, 1839):
241. all cited in O'Connor, "Thomas Hawkins and Geological Spectacle" (cit. n. 5). Hawkins's own effort is Thomas Hawkins, The Lost Angel and the History of the Old Adamites, Found Written on the Pillars of Seth: A Poem (London: William. Pickering, 1840);
242. for the review see Anon., rev. of Hawkins, The Lost Angel, Met. Mag., 1840, 29:102-103, on p. 103.
243. Anon., rev. of Hawkins, The Lost Angel, Met. Mag., p. 103;
244. and John Mitford, rev. of Hawkins, The Lost Angel, Gentleman's Mag., N.S., 1841, 15:169-172, on p. 170.
245. Thomas Hawkins, The Wars of Jehovah in Heaven, Earth, and Hell: In Nine Books (London, 1844);
246. John Mitford, rev. of Hawkins, The Wars of Jehovah, Gentleman's Mag., N.S., 1845, 23:516-519, on pp. 516, 519, 517;
247. and [John Heraud], rev. of Hawkins, The Wars of Jehovah, Athenaeum, 1845, no. 923, pp. 659-660, on pp. 660, 659. The original Delphin Classics were a set of Latin classics edited in France in the seventeenth century for the use of the son of Louis XIV (the Grand Dauphin); in the early nineteenth century the classicist George Dyer edited a set of Latin and Greek classics that were published with the same name.
248. Hawkins, Memoirs, p. vi. During the Renaissance the idea that different styles were appropriate to different genres had been formalized in the doctrine of "decorum," according to which epics, for example, were to be written in the high or "grand" style, while satires required the low or "base" style. The doctrine remained popular through the eighteenth century.
249. [Lord], rev. of Hawkins, Memoirs, Athenaeum, p. 469.
250. George Craikshank, "The British Beehive" (1840), reproduced in Sean Shesgreen, Images of the Outcast: The Urban Poor in the Cries of London (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 2002), p. 11.
251. Albert Smith, The Natural History of Stuck-Up People (London, 1847);
252. Angus Reach, The Natural History of Bores (London: D. Bogue, 1847);
253. and John Smith, Vagabondiana; or, Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers through the Streets of London; with Portraits of the Most Remarkable Drawn from life (London, 1817). Single-leaf prints depicting hawkers and their calls were produced from the sixteenth century. "Cries" first began to be produced as illustrated books around 1750, flourishing during the first half of the nineteenth century.
254. See Shesgreen, Images of the Outcast, Chs. 1, 6. Examples include Timothy Ticklecheek's The Cries of London, Displaying the Manners, Customs, and Characters, of Various People Who Traverse London Streets with Articles to Sell (London: J. Fairburn, 1797);
255. the anonymously produced New Cries of London, with Characteristic Engravings (London: Printed and sold by Darton and Harven, 1804);
256. and John Smith's The Cries of London: Exhibiting Several of the Itinerant Traders of Ancient and Modern Times (London: John Bowyer Nichols, 1839).