This volume consists of a collection of primary sources throwing light on the various aspects of interplay between zoology and visual culture in nineteenth-century Britain. Scientific illustration, both in specialist studies and in works intended for a broader lay readership, are included. These sources throw light on the difficulties of both authors and illustrators in conceptualising their subjects in visual forms, given the great extension of knowledge of the natural world and the technical complexities of image-making in the pre-photographic era. The study examines the impact of zoological knowledge and theories on imaginative art, and explores the aestheticisation and appropriation of nature, especially in relation to bird imagery in painting, illustration and the decorative arts. Finally, the collection examines the presentation of zoology and palæozoology to the general public, for both education and entertainment purposes. This title will be of great interest to students of the History of Science and Art History.

"This is a collection of primary sources throwing light on the various aspects of interplay between zoology and visual culture in nineteenth-century Britain"--

A vital part of daily life in the nineteenth century, games and play were so familiar and so ubiquitous that their presence over time became almost invisible. Technological advances during the century allowed for easier manufacturing and distribution of board games and books about games, and the changing economic conditions created a larger market for them as well as more time in which to play them. These changing conditions not only made games more profitable, but they also increased the influence of games on many facets of culture. Playing Games in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America focuses on the material and visual culture of both American and British games, examining how cultures of play intersect with evolving gender norms, economic structures, scientific discourses, social movements, and nationalist sentiments.

The fight for racial equality in the nineteenth century played out not only in marches and political conventions but also in the print and visual culture created and disseminated throughout the United States by African Americans. Advances in visual technologies--daguerreotypes, lithographs, cartes de visite, and steam printing presses--enabled people to see and participate in social reform movements in new ways. African American activists seized these opportunities and produced images that advanced campaigns for black rights. In this book, Aston Gonzalez charts the changing roles of African American visual artists as they helped build the world they envisioned. Understudied artists such as Robert Douglass Jr., Patrick Henry Reason, James Presley Ball, and Augustus Washington produced images to persuade viewers of the necessity for racial equality, black political leadership, and freedom from slavery. Moreover, these activist artists' networks of transatlantic patronage and travels to Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa reveal their extensive involvement in the most pressing concerns for black people in the Atlantic world. Their work demonstrates how images became central to the ways that people developed ideas about race, citizenship, and politics during the nineteenth century.

This volume examines the cultural importance of the coastline in Britain during a time of vast change.

Animals, Museum Culture and Children’s Literature in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Curious Beasties explores the relationship between the zoological and palaeontological specimens brought back from around the world in the long nineteenth century—be they alive, stuffed or fossilised—and the development of children’s literature at this time. Children’s literature emerged as dizzying numbers of new species flooded into Britain with scientific expeditions, from giraffes and hippopotami to kangaroos, wombats, platypuses or sloths. As the book argues, late Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian children’s writers took part in the urge for mass education and presented the world and its curious creatures to children, often borrowing from their museum culture and its objects to map out that world. This original exploration illuminates how children’s literature dealt with the new ordering of the world, offering a unique viewpoint on the construction of science in the long nineteenth century.

Examines the phenomenon of human exhibitions in nineteenth-century Britain and considers how this legacy informs understandings of race and empire today.