The Scientific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1765–1820

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Editor: Neil Chambers

The Pickering Masters

The Scientific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks is an unprecedented and continuous record of fifty years of intellectual and technological activity. It provides a unique insight into the development of science and discovery from the eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. It links British science and society to developments on the continent of Europe, the West Indies, North America and to countries farther afield.

The current edition is almost entirely comprised of previously unpublished letters to and from Sir Joseph Banks, gathered together from over 150 repositories
world-wide.

Banks’s correspondence starts when he first went travelling and continues through and far beyond his circumnavigation of the globe with James Cook on HMS Endeavour. His far-reaching collections and scientific observations took in South America, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, Labrador and Iceland. Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and trustee of the British Museum, he was elected President of the Royal Society in 1778, a post he held until his death. As President, Banks fostered enlightened relations between scientists across Europe throughout a period of frequent conflict. He continued to influence other voyages of discovery, promoting British interests abroad.

The letters are invaluable to scholars and students of the history of science and natural history, eighteenth-century culture and society, as well as empire studies. They will also be welcomed by museums and institutions around the world associated with Banks’s life and work.

• Around 2,300 letters, largely unpublished, from international archives including: The Natural History Museum, London; The British Library, London; The Sutro Library, California; The Mitchell Library, Sydney; The National Library of Australia, Canberra; Yale University Libraries, Connecticut; Lincolnshire County Archives, Lincoln; Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone; Archive, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• Editorial apparatus includes full and detailed annotation, a general introduction and a consolidated index
• A calendar of correspondents is also given, along with brief biographical details of each

Sample pages

• Volume 2: Sequence of letters between Sir Joseph Banks and Benjamin Franklin
• Volume 6: Entry for Benjamin Franklin in Calendar of Correspondents

Contents

Volumes 1 and 2 The Early Period, 1765–1784

Volumes 3 and 4 The Middle Period, 1785–1800

Volumes 5 and 6 The Late Period, 1801–1820

Selection of Foreign Correspondents
Adam Afzelius; Johan Alströmer; Claude Louis, Comte Berthollet; Jean Baptiste Biot; Marcus Bloch; Johann Friedrich Blumenbach; Pieter Boddaert; Aimé Jaques Alexandre Goujaud Bonpland; Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet; Thomas Bugge; Pieter Camper; Abbé Antonio José Cavanilles; Lorenz Florens Friedrich von Crell; Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre; Jan Deutz; Giovanni Valentino Mattia Fabbroni; Johann Christian Fabricius; Barthélemy Faujas de St Fond; Johann Reinhold Forster; Johann Georg Adam Forster; Benjamin Franklin; Joseph Gaertner; Paul Dietrich Giseke; Friedrich Humboldt; Freiherr Nicolaus Joseph von Jacquin; Freiherr Joseph Franz von Jacquin; Antoine Laurent de Jussieu; Antoine Laurent Lavoisier; Charles Louis L’Heritier de Brutelle; Carl Linnaeus; Carl Linnaeus the younger; João Jacinto Magalhaens (Magellan); Martijn van Marum; Peter Simon Pallas; Abbé Pierre André Pourret; Julius Philipp Benjamin von Rohr; David van Royen; Franz Xavier Schwediaur; Olof Swartz; Jaques René Tenon; André Thouin; Carl Peter Thunberg; Hermann Treschow; Alessandro Volta; Franz Xaver, Freiherr von Zach.

Selection of British Correspondents:
Alexander Aubert; Thomas Beddoes; Sir Charles Blagden; Henry Cavendish; William Curtis; Erasmus Darwin; Humphry Davy; James Dickson; Jonas Dryander; John Ellis; Thomas Falconer; Charles Francis Greville; John Farey; Sir William Hamilton; Charles Hatchett; Sir William Herschel; Everard Home; Sir William Jackson Hooker; Professor John Hope; John Hunter; Sir William Jones; John Lloyd; the Reverand Nevil Maskelyne; Dr. George Pearson; Thomas Pennant; William Perrin; Dr. Joseph Priestley; Dr. Richard Pulteney; General William Roy; Dr. John Sibthorp; Sir James Edward Smith; William Smith; Dr. Daniel Carl Solander; Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford; Marmaduke Tunstall; Charles Waterton; James Watt; Josiah Wedgwood; the Reverend Gilbert White; Dr. William Withering; Dr. William Wright; Dr. Thomas Young.

Selected archives
The Natural History Museum, London; The British Library, London; The Sutro Library, California; The Mitchell Library, Sydney; The National Library of Australia, Canberra; Yale University Libraries, Connecticut; Lincolnshire County Archives, Lincoln; Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone; Archives, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Reviews

'This magnificent collection of more than 2,200 letters will restore Banks to his rightful position as one of the most influential men of the Enlightenment.'
– Andrea Wulf, The Guardian

'An indispensable resource'
– Lynn Glyn, Rare Book Review

'Accessible and attractive...illuminating volumes'
– John Gascoigne, Isis

Related titles

• Joseph Banks and the British Museum : The World of Collecting 1770–1830
• The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768–1820

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