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The Art and Science of William Bartram
276 pages | 110 color illustrations | 9 x 12 | 2007
ISBN 978-0-271-02914-6 | cloth: $45.00
Paperback edition is not available in the U.S.
Co-published with The Natural History Museum, London
Winner of a 2008 AAUP Book Jacket and Journal Show for Trade Illustrated
“Using the best sources and nicely placing Bartram in the context of contemporary scientific thought, Magee provides keen insights into Bartram’s life and contributions. Her work advances our understanding of the role of this important figure in the maturation of natural history studies in America and makes clear the continuing significance of his writings and drawings.” —Lester D. Stephens, Journal of Southern History
“Particularly valuable is the publication, in color, for the first time of all 68 drawings by Bartram held by the Natural History Museum in London as well as natural history illustrations made by Bartram’s contemporaries.” —P.D. Thomas, Choice
“More slithering lowlife can be found in Judith Magee’s luminous The Art and Science of William Bartram. Long before Audubon, Bartram wandered through Cherokee outposts and Florida river basins, circa 1776, filling his notebooks with quasi-surrealist renderings of bobolinks and frolicking alligators. Bartram’s pictures are beautifully reproduced in Magee’s volume, and she makes a good case for his scientific expertise. It’s easy to see why Bartram’s idiosyncratic work stoked the feverish fantasies of Coleridge and Wordsworth.” —Christopher Benfey, Slate's Best books of 2007
“This well-written, accessible, and scholarly book does a splendid job situating William Bartram in the larger context of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the rhetoric of European and American natural history.” —Randall C. Griffin, Southern Methodist University
William Bartram’s love of nature led him to explore the environs of the American Southeast between 1773 and 1777. Here he collected plants and seeds, kept a journal of his observations of nature, and made drawings of the plants and animals he encountered. The completed drawings were sent to his patron in London, and these make up the bulk of the collection held at London’s Natural History Museum.
The Art and Science of William Bartram brings together, for the first time, all sixty-eight drawings by Bartram held at the Natural History Museum, along with works by some of the most well-known natural history artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The volume explores Bartram’s writings and artwork and reveals how influential he was in American science of the period.
Bartram was an inspiration to a whole generation of young scientists and field naturalists. He was an authority on the birds of North America and on the lifestyle, culture, and language of the indigenous people of the regions through which he traveled. His work influenced Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other writers and poets throughout the past two hundred years, and his drawings reveal an ecological understanding of nature that only truly developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Judith Magee is Collections Development Manager in the Library of the Natural History Museum, London. She has acted as picture researcher for several publications and has contributed to Plant Discoveries: A Botanist’s Voyage Through Plant Exploration (2003) and Great Naturalists (forthcoming).
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chronology
Prologue: Explorer, Naturalist, and Artist
Part 1: Formation
1 Plant Hunting and the Seed Trade
2 The Merchant’s Apprentice
3 Cape Fear and Competition
Part 2: Experience
4 Travels in Florida with the King’s Botanist
5 Finding a Patron
Part 3: Independence
6 Travels: Revisiting Old Haunts and Discovering New Ones
7 Encounters and Observations
8 The Arcadian Dream
9 Describing, Classifying, and Naming
Part 4: Influence
10 American Science Comes of Age: Ornithology
11 American Science Comes of Age: Entomology
12 Following in Bartram’s Footsteps
Epilogue: Contentment and Serenity
List of Drawings
Glossary of Names
Bibliography
Index