Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature
How the ‘Terrible Lizard' Became a Transatlantic Cultural Icon
Author: Richard Fallon Series: Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Reimagining Dinosaurs argues that transatlantic popular literature was critical for transforming the dinosaur into a cultural icon between 1880 and 1920
Reimagining Dinosaurs is aimed at literary scholars, historians of science, and curious general readers. Unlike previous works, which suggest that American museums made dinosaurs famous, this book argues that British and American popular literature was critical for transforming the dinosaur into a transatlantic cultural icon between 1880 and 1920.
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Summary
Reimagining Dinosaurs argues that transatlantic popular literature was critical for transforming the dinosaur into a cultural icon between 1880 and 1920
Reimagining Dinosaurs is aimed at literary scholars, historians of science, and curious general readers. Unlike previous works, which suggest that American museums made dinosaurs famous, this book argues that British and American popular literature was critical for transforming the dinosaur into a transatlantic cultural icon between 1880 and 1920.
Description
When the term 'dinosaur' was coined in 1842, it referred to fragmentary British fossils. In subsequent decades, American discoveries—including Brontosaurus and Triceratops—proved that these so-called 'terrible lizards' were in fact hardly lizards at all. By the 1910s 'dinosaur' was a household word. Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature approaches the hitherto unexplored fiction and popular journalism that made this scientific term a meaningful one to huge transatlantic readerships. Unlike previous scholars, who have focused on displays in American museums, Richard Fallon argues that literature was critical in turning these extinct creatures into cultural icons. Popular authors skilfully related dinosaurs to wider concerns about empire, progress, and faith; some of the most prominent, like Arthur Conan Doyle and Henry Neville Hutchinson, also disparaged elite scientists, undermining distinctions between scientific and imaginative writing. The rise of the dinosaurs thus accompanied fascinating transatlantic controversies about scientific authority.
Critic Reviews
'… I enjoyed his book, and recommend it.' A. M. Lucas, Archives of Natural History
'Fallon has introduced readers to a wealth of dinosaur-adjacent literature, some of which will be familiar but much of which is guaranteed to be new to readers. And he has accomplished an exciting coup, by convincing twenty-first-century readers to see something as utterly familiar as a dinosaur as a strange collection of beasts, a category still in negotiation.' Alison Laurence, Victorian Studies
About the Author
RICHARD FALLON is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of Birmingham.
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