Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" Book

"What a thing a book is!": Elizabeth Barrett's celebrated exclamation sets the tone of Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation", James A Secord's spectacular contribution to the cultural history of reading. On the one hand, this is the story of a book. Published anonymously in 1844, Vestiges, was a "sensation": a book about evolution as "readable as a romance, based on the latest findings of science". On the other hand, Secord is uncovering what he describes as "the role of reading in creating the first mass industrial society": the thousands of encounters with Vestiges that he traces through letters, diaries, newspapers, reviews, journals. Vestiges was the subject of conversation: an apparently mundane observation that Secord turns into an opportunity to consider the place of "conversation about books" in civic life, the shift in ideas about what it means to read, and talk about, books in a society coming to terms with the "outpouring of print". The topic of evolution is crucial to this discussion; in part, Victorian Sensation is an exploration of how evolution becomes and remains so pivotal in public debate as a means of addressing the forms of social and cultural conflict that characterised the Victorian era (class and gender, religion and science are the common themes). It's an era of transformation conjured through Secord's impeccable scholarship and compelling prose: Victorian Sensation is a fascinating, and remarkably readable book. --Vicky LebeauRead More