Nature on the Page: The Print and Manuscript Culture of Victorian Natural History by Maria Zytaruk (review)

MARKING THE bicentenary of Queen Victoria's birth, Maria Zytaruk's exhibition Nature on the Page: The Print and Manuscript Culture of Victorian Natural History was displayed at the University of Toronto's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library from January to April 2019. In addition to furth...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Victorian review 2021-10, Vol.47 (2), p.305-308
Main Author: Bassett, Elizabeth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antiquarian materials
Birds
Botany
Culture
Environmentalism
Fairs & exhibitions
Flowers & plants
Handbooks
Historical text analysis
Illustrators
Libraries
Marginalia
Natural history
Nature
Plant sciences
Rare books
Rare materials
Victorian period
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Summary:MARKING THE bicentenary of Queen Victoria's birth, Maria Zytaruk's exhibition Nature on the Page: The Print and Manuscript Culture of Victorian Natural History was displayed at the University of Toronto's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library from January to April 2019. In addition to further highlighting the close relationship between print and manuscript cultures, the second chapter introduces a significant paradox surrounding Victorian natural history endeavours: the fact that naturalists such as Fothergill could contribute valuable knowledge to their fields of study at the same time as they could cause damage to the natural world that was the object of their studies. Picking up on the discussion of accessibility, Zytaruk presents competing views regarding the target audience for Victorian orchid books; at the same time that James Bateman, author of The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala (1837–43), felt that orchids were for "nobility and their drawing-rooms," Benjamin Williams, author of The Orchid-Grower's Manual (1852), felt that "cultivating orchids was relatively easy and affordable" (134, 135). [...]tying the chapter to the thread of environmentalism, Zytaruk discusses the detrimental effects of orchid over-collection.
ISSN:0848-1512
1923-3280
1923-3280
DOI:10.1353/vcr.2021.0036