Marren, Peter (Author)
Like fluttering shards of stained glass, butterflies possess a unique power to pierce and stir the human soul. Indeed, the ancient Greeks explicitly equated the two in a single word, psyche, so that from early times butterflies were not only a form of life, but also an idea. Profound and deeply personal, written with both wisdom and wit, Peter Marren’s Rainbow Dust explores this idea of butterflies—the why behind the mysterious power of these insects we do not flee, but rather chase. At the age of five, Marren had his “Nabokov Moment,” catching his first butterfly and feeling the dust of its colored scales between his fingers. It was a moment that would launch a lifetime’s fascination rivaling that of the famed novelist—a fascination that put both in good company. From the butterfly collecting and rearing craze that consumed North America and Europe for more than two hundred years (a hobby that in some cases bordered on madness), to the potent allure of butterfly iconography in contemporary advertisements and their use in spearheading calls to conserve and restore habitats (even though butterflies are essentially economically worthless), Marren unveils the many ways in which butterflies inspire us as objects of beauty and as symbols both transient and transcendent. Floating around the globe and through the whole gamut of human thought, from art and literature to religion and science, Rainbow Dust is a cultural history rather than merely a natural one, a tribute to butterflies’ power to surprise, entertain, and obsess us. With a sway that far surpasses their fragile anatomy and gentle beat, butterfly wings draw us into the prismatic wonders of the natural world—and, in the words of Marren, these wonders take flight.
...MoreReview Brian W. Ogilvie (2018) Review of "Rainbow Dust: Three Centuries of Butterfly Delight". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 369-370).
Article
Richard I. Vane-Wright;
(2020)
James Petiver's 1717 Papilionum Britanniae: An Analysis of the First Comprehensive Account of British Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea)
(/isis/citation/CBB770224520/)
Book
Vanessa Finney;
(2019)
Transformations: Harriet and Helena Scott, Colonial Sydney’s Finest Natural History Painters
(/isis/citation/CBB440785968/)
Article
W. J. Tennent;
D. K. Mitchell;
(2017)
A Brief Historical Account of an Endemic Swallowtail Butterfly First Collected a Century Ago on Goodenough Island (D'Entrecasteaux Group) in Papua New Guinea
(/isis/citation/CBB490717530/)
Article
Waring, Sophie;
(2015)
Margaret Fountaine: A Lepidopterist Remembered
(/isis/citation/CBB001422107/)
Article
Marinescu, Alexandru;
(2007)
Aristide Caradja et sa grande collection de lépidoptères
(/isis/citation/CBB000831548/)
Book
Jan Marten Ivo Klaver;
(2023)
Science, Religion and Society. Nineteenth-Century Cultural Contexts
(/isis/citation/CBB842010654/)
Article
Coleman, Deirdre;
(2006)
Entertaining Entomology: Insects and Insect Performers in the Eighteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB000741373/)
Book
Johnson, Kristin;
(2012)
Ordering Life: Karl Jordan and the Naturalist Tradition
(/isis/citation/CBB001210068/)
Article
William Eamon;
(2018)
Corn, Cochineal, and Quina: The “Zilsel Thesis” in a Colonial Iberian Setting
(/isis/citation/CBB085994099/)
Article
McDowell, Paula;
(2012)
Of Grubs and Other Insects: Constructing the Categories of “Ephemera” and “Literature” in Eighteenth-Century British Writing
(/isis/citation/CBB001320055/)
Article
Day, Maxwell F. C.;
Whitten, Maxwell J.;
Sands, Don;
(2001)
Douglas Frew Waterhouse, 1916-2000
(/isis/citation/CBB000100957/)
Book
Oxford University Museum of Natural History;
(2021)
Iconotypes: A Compendium of Butterflies and Moths, Jones' Icones Complete
(/isis/citation/CBB318892632/)
Article
Zallen, Doris T.;
(2014)
The Power of Partnerships: The Liverpool School of Butterfly and Medical Genetics
(/isis/citation/CBB001202241/)
Chapter
Poulin, Isabelle;
(2008)
Peut-on raconter la science? Réflexions sur la traduction controversée d'un écrivain lépidoptériste: Vladimir Nabokov
(/isis/citation/CBB000954617/)
Article
Lambkin, Kevin J.;
(2013)
Conrad Kelsall: “Butterflying” on the Little Mulgrave River, North Queensland, in 1903
(/isis/citation/CBB001252598/)
Thesis
Novak, Jakub;
(2008)
Alfred Russel Wallace's and August Weismann's Evolution: A Story Written on Butterfly Wings
(/isis/citation/CBB001561157/)
Chapter
Davis, Frederick R.;
(2009)
Papilio Dardanus: The Natural Animal from the Experimentalist's Point of View
(/isis/citation/CBB001022527/)
Article
Frost, Warwick;
(1998)
European farming, Australian pests: Agricultural settlement and environmental disruption in Australia, 1800-1920
(/isis/citation/CBB000076434/)
Article
Jose F. Gómez;
Flora Bourgès;
(2017)
Sobre la gestión del patrimonio natural y el paisaje en España en la era de los Espacios Naturales Protegidos: el caso de los invertebrados
(/isis/citation/CBB887137711/)
Article
Wilkinson, Ronald S.;
(1982)
Samuel Dale's “1704” catalogue of English butterflies
(/isis/citation/CBB000019155/)
Be the first to comment!