Martin Lister and his Remarkable Daughters

This is the extraordinary and compelling story of how a scientific father and his two artistic daughters created the first comprehensive, illustrated account of the biology of molluscs. – T.R. Birkhead, author of ‘The Wonderful Mr Willughby’‘Historian Anna Marie Roos marshals her considerable talents as a researcher to recover the story of how Lister’s daughters learnt to draw and etch scientifically accurate natural history illustrations … lucid and surprisingly funny … Roos is to be congratulated on recovering an important episode in the intertwined history of art and science in the early modern period, the history of scientific book production and the hidden role of women in the history of science.’ * Nature *‘Fascinating glimpse of 17th-century female artistic endeavour – unstinting, unpaid and, until now, unsung.’ * Country Life *

Anna Marie Roos is Reader in the history of science and medicine at the University of Lincoln.