In Nature's Name : An Anthology of Women's Writing and Illustration, 1780-1930

by Gates, Barbara T.

• ISBN13: 9780226284460
• ISBN10: 0226284468
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

From the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, hundreds of British women wrote about and drew from nature. Some--like the beloved children's author Beatrix Potter, who produced natural history about hedgehogs as well as fiction about rabbits--are still familiar today. But others have all but disappeared from view. Barbara Gates recovers these lost works and prints them alongside little-known pieces by more famous authors, like Potter's field notes on hedgehogs, reminding us of better known stories that help set the others in context. The works contained in this volume are as varied as the women who produced them. They include passionate essays on the protection of animals, vivid accounts of travel and adventure from the English seashore to the Indian Alps, poetry and fiction, and marvelous tales of nature for children. Special features of the book include a detailed chronology placing each selection in its historical and literary context; biographical sketches of each author's life and works; a comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary literature; and over sixty illustrations. An ideal introduction to women's powerful and diverse responses to the natural world, In Nature's Name will be treasured by anyone interested in natural history, women, or Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

Author Biography

Barbara T. Gates is Alumni Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Delaware. She is the author of Victorian Suicide: Mad Crimes and Sad Histories and Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World, the latter published by the University of Chicago Press. Her edited works include Critical Essays on Charlotte Brontë, the Journal of Emily Shore, and, with Ann B. Shteir, Natural Eloquence: Women Reinscribe Science. In the year 2000, she was awarded the Founders' Distinguished Senior Scholar Award by the American Association of University Women.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	xv
Acknowledgments	xix
Preface	xxi
PRELUDE
Cecil Frances Alexander
``All Things Bright and Beauteous''	3	(1)
Mary Webb
``Face to face with the sunflower''	4	(5)
SECTION ONE: SPEAKING OUT
Introduction	9	(5)
Lydia Becker
``Is There Any Specific Distinction Between Male and Female Intellect?''	14	(6)
From ``On the Study of Science by Women''	20	(12)
Emma Wallington
``The Physical and Intellectual Capacities of Woman Equal to Those of Men''	32	(15)
Mona Caird
From ``A Defence of the So-called `Wild Women'''	47	(14)
Florence Dixie
From Gloriana; or The Revolution of 1900	61	(5)
Frances Swiney
From Woman and Natural Law	66	(10)
From ``Man's Necessity''	76	(7)
SECTION TWO: PROTECTING
Introduction	83	(15)
Sensitivity to Other Species
Sarah Trimmer
From Fabulous Histories	98	(3)
Mary Martha Sherwood
From Soffrona and Her Cat Muff	101	(6)
Anne Bronte
``The Uncle''	107	(3)
``The Captive Dove''	110	(1)
Eliza Cook
``On Seeing a Bird-Catcher''	111	(1)
Anna Sewell
From Black Beauty, ``Poor Ginger''	112	(1)
Mathilde Blind
``On a Forsaken Lark's Nest''	113	(1)
Christina Rossetti
``Hurt no living thing''	114	(1)
``Hopping frog, hop here and be seen''	114	(1)
``Hear what the mournful linnets say''	115	(1)
Mary Howitt
``The Cry of the Suffering Creatures''	115	(2)
The Horrors of Sport
Anna Sewell
From Black Beauty, ``The Hunt''	117	(2)
Florence Dixie
``The Horrors of Sport''	119	(4)
Mary Webb
From Gone to Earth	123	(6)
Antivivisection
Vernon Lee
From ``Vivisection: An Evolutionist to Evolutionists''	129	(6)
Anna Kingsford
From Spiritual Therapeutics, ``Unscientific Science: Moral Aspects of Vivisection''	135	(10)
Frances Power Cobbe
From The Modern Rack, ``Science in Excelsis: A New Vision of Judgement''	145	(10)
Louise Lind-af-Hageby and Liese Schartau
From The Shambles of Science: Extracts from the Diary of Two Students of Physiology, ``Fun''	155	(3)
Conservation: Birds
Eliza Cook
From the preface to Poetical Works	158	(1)
``Birds''	159	(1)
Sara Orne Jewett
From `A White Heron' and Other Stories, ``A White Heron''	159	(9)
Winifred, Duchess of Portland
From the opening proceedings of ``Protection of Bird and Animal Life,'' International Congress of Women	168	(2)
Margaretta Lemon
``Dress in Relation to Animal Life''	170	(6)
Mary Webb
``The Cuckoo Clock''	176	(9)
Conservation: The Land and Its Plants
Mary Russell Mitford
From Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery, ``Walks in the Country: The Wood''	185	(4)
Octavia Hill
From ``Our Common Land''	189	(3)
Edith Nesbit
From Wings and the Child; or, The Building of Magic Cities	192	(6)
Juliana Horatia Ewing
From A Great Emergency, & Other Tales, ``Our Field''	198	(9)
Charlotte Mew
``The Trees Are Down''	207	(4)
SECTION THREE: DOMESTICATING
Introduction	211	(12)
Menageries and Animal Stories
Margaret Emily Shore
The Penny Magazine, ``Account of a Young Cuckoo''	223	(2)
The Penny Magazine, ``The Golden-Crested Wren''	225	(2)
From Journal of Emily Shore	227	(1)
E. A. Maling
From Song Birds and How to Keep Them	228	(4)
Eliza Brightwen
From More about Wild Nature, ``Impey the Bat''	232	(4)
From Inmates of My House and Garden	236	(4)
Alice Dew-Smith
From Tom Tug and Others: Sketches in a Domestic Menagerie	240	(7)
Farming and Gardsening
Harriet Martineau
From Our Farm of Two Acres	247	(5)
Annie Martin
From Home Life on an Ostrich Farm	252	(8)
Eliza Cook
``Song of the Ostrich''	260	(2)
Gertrude Jekyll
From Children and Gardens, ``Pussies in the Garden''	262	(5)
Margaret Gatty
From Parables from Nature, ``Training and Restraining''	267	(6)
Frances Hodgson Burnett
From The Secret Garden	273	(4)
Mary Webb
``A Cedar-Rose''	277	(6)
Plants and Interiors
Jane Loudon
From A Lady's Country Companion	283	(2)
Elizabeth Twining
From What Can Window-Gardens do for our Health?	285	(11)
Annie Hassard
From Floral Decorations for the Dwelling House	296	(5)
SECTION FOUR: ADVENTURING
Introduction	301	(11)
For Science
Mary Kingsley
From ``Fishing in West Africa''	312	(12)
Marianne North
From Recollections of a Happy Life	324	(6)
Louisa Anne Meredith
From My Home in Tasmania	330	(12)
For Sport
George Egerton
From ``A Cross Line''	342	(3)
Mrs. R. H. Tyacke
From How I Shot My Bears; or Two Years in Kullu and Lahoul	345	(3)
Isabel Savory
From A Sportswoman in India	348	(8)
Isabella Bird
From Six Months in the Sandwich Islands	356	(4)
From A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains	360	(11)
Nina Mazuchelli
From The Indian Alps and How We Crossed Them	371	(6)
Eliza Cook
``Song of the Eagle''	377	(4)
SECTION FIVE: APPRECIATING
Introduction	381	(8)
Romanticism
Dorothy Wordsworth
From The Alfoxden Journal	389	(1)
Emily Bronte
``High Waving Heather''	390	(1)
Charlotte Mew
From The Poems of Emily Bronte	390	(1)
Mary Howitt
``The Dor-Hawk''	391	(1)
Florence Dixie
``With Nature''	392	(2)
Eliza Cook
``The Old Green Lane''	394	(1)
``Not as I Used to Do''	395	(2)
Beatrix Potter
``Elder flowers''	397	(2)
Aestheticism
Eliza Brightwen
From More About Wild Nature, ``Dame Nature''	399	(2)
Vernon Lee
From Genius Loci, ``Among the Marble Mountains''	401	(3)
From The Spirit of Rome, ``Asphodels''	404	(1)
From The Tower of the Mirrors and Other Essays, ``The Lizard in the Abbey Church''	405	(3)
Amy Levy
``To Vernon Lee''	408	(1)
Alice Meynell
``Rain''	409	(2)
The Color of Life
Octavia Hill
From ``Colour, Space, and Music for the People''	411	(4)
Gertrude Jekyll
From Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden, ``Gardens of Special Colouring''	415	(7)
Mary Webb
From The Spring of Joy, ``The Beauty of Colour''	422	(6)
Christina Rossetti
``Where innocent bright-eyed daisies are''	428	(1)
Michael Field
``Noon''	428	(1)
``Cyclamens''	429	(1)
Mary Webb
``The White Moth''	429	(1)
Mary E. Coleridge
``L'Oiseau Bleu''	430	(1)
Charlotte Mew
``The Sunlit House''	431	(1)
Alice Meynell
``A Dead Harvest: In Kensington Gardens''	432	(3)
SECTION SIX: POPULARIZING SCIENCE
Introduction	435	(8)
Kinds of Science Popularization
Jane Marcet
From Conversations on Natural Philosophy	443	(16)
Mary Somerville
From On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences	459	(7)
Jane Loudon
From The Young Naturalist	466	(7)
Arabella B. Buckley
From The Fairy-land of Science	473	(11)
Ellis Ethelmer (Elizabeth Wolstenholine Elmy)
From Baby Buds	484	(4)
Women and Darwin
Arabella B. Buckley
From Life and Her Children	488	(8)
From Winners in Life's Race	496	(12)
A. Mary F. Robinson
``Darwinism''	508	(1)
Alice Bodington
From Studies in Evolution and Biology	509	(3)
May Kendall
``The Lower Life''	512	(2)
``Lay of the Trilobite''	514	(5)
SECTION SEVEN: AMATEURS OR PROFESSIONALS?
Introduction	519	(10)
Who/ What Was a Professional?
Miss White
``The Training of Women as Gardeners''	529	(6)
Sarah Bowdich Lee
From Taxidermy; or The Art of Collecting, Preparing, and Mounting Objects of Natural History	535	(7)
Elizabeth Gould
From a Letter of 9 January 1838	542	(2)
Jemima Blackburn
Letter to Nature, 14 March 1872	544	(2)
Beatrix Potter
``Hedgehogs''	546	(2)
Seaweeds, Zoophytes, and Women
Eliza Cook
From ``Song of the Sea-weed''	548	(1)
Anne Pratt
From Chapters on the Common Things of the Sea-side, ``Zoophytes''	549	(3)
Margaret Gatty
From British Sea-weeds	552	(8)
From Parables from Nature, ``Knowledge not the Limit of Belief''	560	(7)
Professionals
Margaret F. Fountaine
``Amongst the Rhopalocera of the Philippines''	567	(8)
Eleanor Ormerod
From Eleanor Ormerod, LL.D.	575	(12)
Marie Stopes
``The `Xerophytic' Character of the Gymnosperms''	587	(5)
From The Study of Plant Life for Young People	592	(4)
From Married Love	596	(9)
POSTLUDE
Mary Webb
From ``Vis Medicatrix Nature''	605	(6)
Chronology	611	(24)
Biographical Sketches	635	(22)
For Further Reading	657