The Material Cultures of Enlightenment Arts and Sciences

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

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2. Introduction

   • Adriana Craciun, Simon Schaffer

   Pages 1-11

3. Natural Curiosities

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

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   2. Handling Objects in Natural History Collections

      • Mary Terrall

      Pages 15-33

   3. Curious Work

      • Mary M. Brooks

      Pages 35-37

   4. The Lives of Mrs Delany’s Paper Plants

      • Kim Sloan

      Pages 39-41

   5. A Pathological Pot

      • Samuel J. M. M. Alberti

      Pages 43-45

   6. The Seeds of Disaster: Relics of La Pérouse

      • Adriana Craciun

      Pages 47-69

4. Tools and Travels

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 71-71

      PDF

   2. A Bird in the Hand, or, Manufacturing Credibility in the Instruments of Enlightenment Science

      • Richard Dunn

      Pages 73-90

   3. Mapping New Spaces

      • Patricia Seed

      Pages 91-94

   4. By Hand or By Engine

      • Richard Dunn

      Pages 95-97

   5. The Ship as Object: The Launch of the Queen Charlotte

      • James Davey

      Pages 99-101

   6. The Nautical Almanac: Instrument of Controversy

      • Sophie Waring

      Pages 103-106

   7. The Navy’s New Clothes

      • Amy Miller

      Pages 107-109

   8. Unwrapping Gods: Illuminating Encounters with Gods, Comets and Missionaries

      • Maia Nuku

      Pages 111-129

5. Artificial Curiosities

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 131-131

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   2. Persons and Things

      • Jonathan Lamb

      Pages 133-143

   3. The Fabric of Domestic Life: Rethinking the Humble Painted Cloth

      • Tara Hamling

      Pages 145-147

   4. The Willdey Telescope: Instrument for Fashion, Learning and Amusement

      • Alexi Baker

      Pages 149-151

In this book the eighteenth century Enlightenment receives an important reassessment, using an astonishing range of materials and objects drawn from Europe and beyond, including artefacts from India and China, West Africa and Polynesia. A series of authoritative essays written by experts in the field explores the full range of material culture in the long eighteenth century, raising crucial questions about notions of property and invention, homely and commercial lives. The book also includes a series of well-illustrated exhibits, a startling and provocative assemblage of objects from the Enlightenment world, each accompanied by expert commentaries. The collection of essays and exhibits is the result of collaborative debate by scholars from Europe and north America, who have together worked on the cross-disciplinary importance of material history in making sense of how past society was fundamentally transformed through the world of goods. 

• Enlightenment
• Material culture
• Consumption
• Eighteenth-century
• Property
• Artefacts

“Innovative and engaging. A valuable collection of essays on the rich and broad topic of Enlightenment material cultures.” (Catherine Packham, University of Sussex, UK)

• University of California Presidential Chair University of California, Riverside, Riverside, USA

  Adriana Craciun

• Professor of History and Philosophy of Science University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

  Simon Schaffer

Adriana Craciun is University of California Presidential Chair at the University of California, Riverside, USA. She has previously taught at the University of London and the University of Nottingham. She is the author of numerous works on British literature and culture, the history of exploration and Arctic studies.


Simon Schaffer is Professor of History of Science at the University of Cambridge, UK. He is coeditor of The Sciences in Enlightened Europe (1999) and of The Brokered World: Go-betweens and Global Intelligence 1770-1820 (2009). 

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