Popular Exhibitions, Science and Showmanship, 1840–1910

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Editors: Joe Kember, John Plunkett and Jill A Sullivan

Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century

Victorian culture was characterized by a proliferation of shows and exhibitions. These were encouraged by the development of new sciences and technologies, together with changes in transportation, education and leisure patterns. The essays in this collection look at exhibitions and their influence in terms of location, technology and ideology.

Sample pages

• Introduction
• Index

Readership

History of Science and Technology and Victorian Studies

Contents

Introduction – Joe Kember, John Plunkett and Jill A Sullivan
Part I: Science and Spectacle
1 Spectacle in Leicester Square: James Wyld’s Great Globe, 1851–61 – Bernard Lightman
2 Fêtes, Bazaars and Conversaziones: Science, Entertainment and Local Civic Elites – John Plunkett and Jill A Sullivan
3 The Afterlife of Freak Shows – Fiona Pettit
Part II: Word and Image
4 Beyond Scientific Spectacle: Image and Word in Nineteenth-Century Popular Lecturing – Martin Hewitt
5 Daniel William Cahill and the Rhetorical Geography of Science and Religion – Diarmid A Finnegan
6 Narrativizing ‘The World’s Show’: The Great Exhibition, Panoramic Views and Print Supplements – Verity Hunt
Part III: Staging Knowledge
7 The Talking Fish: Performance and Delusion in the Victorian Exhibition – Caroline Radcliffe
8 Representation, Race and the Zoological Real in the Great Gorilla Controversy of 1861 – John Miller
9 On Wonder: Situating the Spectacle in Spiritualism and Performance Magic – Martin Willis
Part IV: The Politics of Display
10 Meeting the Zulus: Displayed Peoples and the Shows of London, 1853–79 – Sadiah Qureshi
11 Unwrapping the Past: Egyptian Mummies on Show – Beverley Rogers
12 ‘The Wandering Friend’ Andrew Carnegie’s Dinosaur Invades Europe, 1902–14 – Ilja Nieuwland

Reviews

‘This fascinating collection of essays breaks new ground in its representation of the central place of exhibitions in Victorian culture. The book takes us on a grand tour of Victorian display leaving the reader in no doubt that science, for the Victorians, was built around spectacle. This insightful overview is a must read for anyone who wants to understand how and why science became part of nineteenth-century culture.’ Iwan Morus, Aberystwyth University

Related titles

• Communities of Science in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
• Free Will and the Human Sciences in Britain, 1870–1910
• Panoramas, 1787–1900: Texts and Contexts
• Science and Eccentricity: Collecting, Writing and Performing Science for Early Nineteenth-Century Audiences
• The Great Exhibition: A Documentary History
• Victorian Science and Literature

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