Book ID: CBB001422649

Science in Wonderland: The Scientific Fairy Tales of Victorian Britain (2015)

unapi

Keene, Melanie (Author)


Oxford University Press


Publication Date: 2015
Physical Details: xiii + 277 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English

In Victorian Britain an array of writers captured the excitement of new scientific discoveries, and enticed young readers and listeners into learning their secrets, by converting introductory explanations into quirky, charming, and imaginative fairy-tales; forces could be fairies, dinosaurs could be dragons, and looking closely at a drop of water revealed a soup of monsters. Science in Wonderland explores how these stories were presented and read. Melanie Keene introduces and analyses a range of Victorian scientific fairy-tales, from nursery classics such as The Water-Babies to the little-known Wonderland of Evolution, or the story of insect lecturer Fairy Know-a-Bit. In exploring the ways in which authors and translators - from Hans Christian Andersen and Edith Nesbit to the pseudonymous 'A.L.O.E.' and 'Acheta Domestica' - reconciled the differing demands of factual accuracy and fantastical narratives, Keene asks why the fairies and their tales were chosen as an appropriate new form for capturing and presenting scientific and technological knowledge to young audiences. Such stories, she argues, were an important way in which authors and audiences criticised, communicated, and celebrated contemporary scientific ideas, practices, and objects.

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Reviewed By

Review Agustí Nieto-Galan (2016) Review of "Science in Wonderland: The Scientific Fairy Tales of Victorian Britain". Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (pp. 274-275). unapi

Review Barbara T. Gates (2016) Review of "Science in Wonderland: The Scientific Fairy Tales of Victorian Britain". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 869-870). unapi

Review Adelene Buckland (2016) Review of "Science in Wonderland: The Scientific Fairy Tales of Victorian Britain". Archives of Natural History (pp. 373-374). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001422649/

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Authors & Contributors
Lara Pauline Karpenko
Schatz, Stephanie L.
Shalyn Rae Claggett
Fallon, Richard
Danilo Manera
Purton, Valerie
Concepts
Popular culture
Science and literature
Science and culture
Children and science
Popularization
Science fiction
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
Modern
Enlightenment
21st century
20th century, late
Places
Great Britain
Europe
Arctic regions
North Korea
England
United States
Institutions
Royal Meteorological Society (Great Britain)
Zoological Society of London
Royal Geographical Society
Linnean Society of London
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