Publisher's Synopsis
This collection brings together essays by leading scholars exploring the complex interface of culture and science in the Victorian era.;Long before the so-called "two-cultures" conflict, Victorians encountered science in unpredictable ways, being surprised and enchanted as much as threatened by emerging technologies or the claims of newly professional scientists. "Transactions and Encounters" examines a diverse range of such moments: the popular craze for microscopes; the uncanny possibility of the telephone; the jostling for authority between literature and science, with scenes by and including Dickens and Lewes, Huxley and Gosse; the weird imaginary around androgynous barnacles; and the competing versions of a mind-reading act.;These essays combine to produce an attempt to re-cast understanding of 19th-century encounters between the cultural and scientific spheres. The contributors include David Amigoni, Isobel Armstrong, Carolyn Burdett, Steven Connor, Lindsay Smith, Rebecca Stott, Lynette Turner and Paul S. White.
