Sarah Bowdich Lee (1791-1856) and Pioneering Perspectives on Natural History

Sarah Bowdich Lee (1791-1856) and Pioneering Perspectives on Natural History

Author: Mary Orr

Publisher: Anthem Press

Published: 2024-09-17

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1839986107

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History from below uncovers overlooked protagonists contributing to (inter)national endeavour often against considerable odds. Mrs T. Edward Bowdich then Mrs R. Lee (1791–1856) is indicative. When women allegedly cannot participate in early nineteenth-century scientific exploration, discovery and publication, Sarah’s multiple specialist contributions to French and British natural history have attracted no book-length study. This first appraisal of Sarah’s unbroken production of discipline-changing scientific work over three decades – in modern ichthyology, in historical geography of West Africa and in the next-generational dissemination of expert scientific knowledge – does more than fill this gap. The book also pivotally investigates the intercultural, interdisciplinary and multi-genre reach of Sarah’s pioneering perspectives and contributions, and how she could achieve her work independently in her own name(s) over three decades. Sarah’s larger significance is then to provide a very different narrative for women at work in expert nineteenth-century natural history-making. By everywhere challenging the secondary, minor and domestic frames for women’s contributions of the period, the pioneering perspectives of Sarah’s story also provide alternative paradigms to the ‘leaky-pipeline’ modelstill informing women’s careers and work in STEM(M) today.


Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Selected Writings

Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Selected Writings

Author: Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Publisher: Broadview Press

Published: 1997-10-07

Total Pages: 510

ISBN-13: 1551111357

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The work of ‘L.E.L.’ began to be published when she was only seventeen, and in her early twenties Landon had already achieved considerable renown. As a widely envied independent woman in London society, however, she was increasingly the subject of scandalous gossip. Eventually she married the governor of a colony in West Africa, and died under mysterious circumstances soon after arriving in Africa, aged thirty-six. Landon’s life contributed very largely to the nineteenth-century archetype of the poet as a breed apart, heroic but doomed. Her poetry, however, was until very recently largely forgotten; this is the first twentieth-century edition of her poems, which the editors describe as “cold and sentimental at the same time, flat and intense.” In addition to a broad selection of Landon’s poetry and prose, this volume also includes a wide variety of contextual materials and a comprehensive bibliography.


Selections from Eliza Leslie

Selections from Eliza Leslie

Author: Eliza Leslie

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2011-12-01

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0803238096

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Best known for her culinary and domestic guides and the award-winning short story “Mrs. Washington Potts,” Eliza Leslie deserves a much more prominent place in contemporary literary discussions of the nineteenth century. Her writing, known for its overtly moralistic and didactic tones—though often presented with wit and humor—also provides contemporary readers with a nuanced perspective for understanding the diversity among American women in Leslie’s time. Leslie’s writing serves as a commentary on gender ideals and consumerism; presents complicated constructions of racial, national, and class-based identities; and critiques literary genres such as the Gothic romance and the love letter. These criticisms are exposed through the juxtaposition of her fiction and nonfiction instructive texts, which range from lessons on literary conduct to needlework; from recipes for American and French culinary dishes to travel sketches; from songs to educational games. Demonstrating the complexity of choices available to women at the time, this volume enables readers to see how Leslie’s rhetoric and audience awareness facilitated her ability to appeal to a broad swath of the nineteenth-century reading public.