Folio Society Published Works Number 3214
Holmes, Richard - The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
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Holmes, Richard - The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science (Published in by The Folio Society in 2015. Introduced by Jenny Uglow . Richard Holmes presents an entertaining study of the extraordinary figures that changed the face of science. This edition features many illuminating newly researched images: diagrams of galvanism show the effects of electricity on a severed ox's head, and 'Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion' poignantly illustrates the bravery of the lone traveller. In her introduction, the acclaimed writer Jenny Uglow shares her enthusiasm for a book that encourages us to 'make our own imaginative flights'. Bound in cloth, blocked with a typographic design by Marcus Leis Allion. Set in Iowan Old Style with Bulmer display. 608 pages. Frontispiece and 32 pages of colour and black & white plates, and integrated mono images. 10" x 6.75". Poetry and science unified. 'Groundbreaking … a buoyant new fusion of history, art, science, philosophy and biography'. THE NEW YORK TIMES. In 1771 Joseph Banks returned from the South Pacific a changed man; having accompanied Captain Cook on his three-year voyage on board the Endeavour, he was exhausted and unwell, yet filled with 'scientific wanderlust'. Made president of the Royal Society at the age of 35, Banks would go on to nurture several protégées, directing the 'adventurous character of romantic science'. In his exuberant history of a time when art and science stood arm in arm, Richard Holmes places Banks at the beginning of a movement in which wonder would come to be both the instigator of science, and its ultimate reward. The Age of Wonder reveals the fascinating cast of the era: William Herschel, whose explorations of the stars led to the discovery of Uranus, and the chemist Humphry Davy, who frequently endangered his own life in his experiments. Their devotion to discovery inspired a generation of romantic poets, including Coleridge, who would attend Davy's lectures and write essays on his work. As well as these key figures, Holmes demonstrates the breadth of scientific and artistic endeavour: from the ballooning craze that consumed Europe in 1783, to Mary Shelly's nightmarish Frankenstein, he sweeps the reader along in an infectious race for greater understanding. 'Dazzling and approachable'. ANDREW MOTION, Guardian. From the Folio Society description. )
