Gilbert White Research Articles

Nigel Leask Robert Burns and Pastoral: Poetry and Improvement in Late Eighteenth-Century ScotlandRobert Burns and Pastoral: Poetry and Improvement in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland. Nigel Leask. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xiv+368.

<i>Nigel Leask</i> Robert Burns and Pastoral: Poetry and Improvement in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland<i>Robert Burns and Pastoral: Poetry and Improvement in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland</i>. Nigel Leask. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xiv+368.

The Romantic Prospects of the Duke of Richmond's Moose

George Stubbs's painting The Duke of Richmond's First Bull Moose (1770) offers a visual counterpart to an arresting account addressed to the naturalist Thomas Pennant in Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne of his 1768 visit to inspect the Duke of Richmond's recently deceased female “moose-deer.” The Duke was one of several aristocrats who acquired moose from Canada; his animals were studied by White, by Pennant, and by the physician and anatomist William Hunter who commissioned Stubbs's work. While Stubbs depicted the animal accurately, he had no knowledge of its natural habitat; the moose is incongruously placed in a mountainous lake landscape during an approaching storm. This romanticized landscape prospect offers a metaphor for the story of the moose in late eighteenth-century Britain. While looking forward and outward to understand the natural world, these depictions of the moose are equally subjective and imaginative and contributed to debates on extinction and the idea of species. The unsuccessful introduction of the moose to Britain defeated prospects for their domestication and cross-breeding. Close reading of Stubbs's painting, White's narrative, Pennant's Arctic Zoology, and Hunter's unpublished scientific paper on the moose suggest the kinds of wonder which mark the efforts on the part of science and the arts to understand this puzzling and mysterious animal.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Ecocriticism and Eighteenth‐Century English Studies

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Ecocriticism and Eighteenth‐Century English Studies

In the Hollow of the Wave: Virginia Woolf and Modernist Uses of Nature (review)

Reviewed by: In the Hollow of the Wave: Virginia Woolf and Modernist Uses of Nature Alison Lacivita In the Hollow of the Wave: Virginia Woolf and Modernist Uses of Nature. Bonnie Kime Scott. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011. Pp. xv + 272. $39.50 (cloth). Bonnie Kime Scott’s In the Hollow of the Wave: Virginia Woolf and Modernist Uses of Nature is a very welcome addition to Woolf studies, a product of increasing interest in Woolf and the environment. Perhaps the first monograph to address the intersection of modernism and nature through an ecocritical perspective, Scott’s study provides intriguing insights into how the concept of nature impacted Woolf’s life and work, and it paves the way for future inquiry into the possibility of an ecocritical modernism. Predictably, Scott chooses to focus on an ecofeminist approach to Woolf while also drawing on postcolonial ecocritical theory. Her introduction explains that she has chosen the word “uses” for the title of her study because the word “calls attention to nature as a deliberate discourse, rather than essence or aesthetic decoration” (3). This small word, “use,” coheres the study in many respects. There is no one unifying way in which Woolf presents nature; rather, she offers a plethora of different representations dependent upon character, context, and time, and this subjectivity of nature is what guides the study. As Scott concludes at the end of the first chapter, “We now have the theoretical insight to consider the ways that nature itself is a cultural construction, variable with the ages, and highly political, as empowered intellectuals, or nations, seek to regulate or to collect nature for their own ends. Modernism provides a fine example, and Virginia Woolf a case worth pursuing in depth” (41). The first chapter, “Towards a Greening of Modernism,” situates Woolf within a larger context of literary modernism and nature, discussing a diverse range of writers including H. D., Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot, and Wyndham Lewis. Scott writes of the “reinsertion” of nature into modernist studies (was it ever there in the first place?), supported by the somewhat weak assertion that modernists “regularly make reference to nature, or its control, in their writing” (13). The second chapter, “Diversions of Darwin and Natural History,” is perhaps the strongest; it covers some hallowed ground in Woolf studies (Gillian Beer) and provides absorbing glimpses into the Stephen family’s relationship to natural history. From Leslie Stephen’s admiration of Gilbert White (45) to Thoby’s extensive bird-watching records and sketches (56–57) to Virginia’s diary records of family trips to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington as early as 1897 (48), Scott builds a convincing base for many of her arguments concerning Woolf’s texts. The next two chapters, “Limits of the Garden as Cultured Space” and “The Art of Landscape, the Politics of Place,” also cover familiar ground in Woolf criticism, but they provide some curious readings, particularly in terms of the Bloomsbury circle’s engagement with nature (mostly in terms of the visual arts), the construction of “Englishness” through images of the rural landscape, and issues of gender and class as they relate to perceptions of nature. Particularly interesting is Scott’s discussion of gardens and flowers as forming part of the material text, an idea which stems from Vanessa’s woodcuts for Virginia’s pieces. For example: “In a 1927 illustrated version of Kew Gardens, flowers and leaves surround the words of the text,” for which there is also an accompanying image (90). Many of the thought provoking readings of Woolf’s “uses” of nature in Scott’s study, and in these two chapters in particular, are supported by the extensive archival research undertaken for the project; the photographs of Woolf with red-hot pokers, of Leslie Stephen with his “Alpine Guide,” and of Woolf and Vita Sackville-West with their spaniels are just a few examples of ephemera that support and complement the text. Another strong quality of this study is how Scott demonstrates nature seeping into Woolf’s life at all points, a tendency that the author illustrates through the careful accumulation and presentation of seemingly small details extending from archival research. According to...

The Grasses of Ireland by John Feehan, Helen Sheridan, Damian Egan, Tony Farragher

BOOK REVIEW Cite asfollows: Curtis, T.G.F. 2012 Book review: The Grasses ofIreland. Biology and Environment: Proceedings ofthe Royal Irish Academy 112B, DOI:10.3318/ BIOE.2012.26. The GrassesofIreland John FeehanandHelenSheridan. Photographs byDamianEgan.Keyto thevegetative and flowering phases byTonyFarragher (Teagasc2012;226 pp;€30paperback) ISBN 978-1-905254-61-3 This book originated froma perceived need of manypeopleto havea 'pictorial and lessformal introductory book thatmight serveas a stepping stonetothemoreacademic works on theproduction and naturalhistory of wild grasses'.Irish botanists havebeenpreviously wellserved bythe papers ofTonyFarragher andespecially hiskeys to grass species. Butgrasses area challenging subject, even to some experiencedbotanists, and the production of thismoregeneralguideis to be welcomed, especially as itsmoreagricultural slant provides muchinthewayofgoodinformation on theeconomicbenefits and eventhedownside to the cultivation of certaingrassspeciesas crops. Itsauthors, beingprimarily agricultural scientists, arevery goodatbeingobjective whenitcomesto thesupposed benefits ofsomespecies currently the 'darlings' ofindustrial agriculture, notably perennial rye-grass, ofwhichmoreanon! The acknowledgements explain the basic structure ofthebook,withthetextbasedmostly on personalobservation, with photographs by DamianEgan.Thesearesupplemented byfigures from someolderworks, notably Lewton-Brain for transverse sections andStabler andSchröter (1899) andLindeman (1922-1926).Mostofthesections areaccredited, sometoArmstrong, butsomenotat all,andsadlythisis butone ofthemanyinconsistencies that occurthroughout this book.Another instance is theuse ofIrishnameswithin thetext, butwithnames from John Whitefrom 1808,many of which he invented, superimposed upon the photographs. Whywe gettwocontrasting names isnotatallcleartothis reviewer. Andwhyshould thesummary figures for biodiversity valuebe based on British andnotIrish sources? The maintext begins witha description ofthe anatomy ofgrasses, wellillustrated byfigures. It's notclearfrom fig.5 how spikelets canbe singleflowered orhavemoreflowers, andfurther illustrationwouldhavebeenuseful as thisis always the stumbling blockforbeginners and even forthe moreadvanced.Therefollows sections are titled Pollination, Originsof Grasses,Grasslandand Farming, Biodiversity, Cultivation, Diversity of Swardand Why are GrassesChallenging? Then follows a sectionon whatis nota grass, and the comparisons betweenthatgroupand sedgesand rushes arepresented. It is stated thatconfusion is mostlikely withthevegetative stages ofall three groups butunfortunately itis thetextitself that is confusing - sedges aresaidto haveno glumes, but they do have!The accompanying pictures ofwhat are'Notgrasses' [sic]hasaninset fig.9a ofwhatis statedto be Carexelatabut whatis clearly saw sedge.Fig.9bissaidtobe Polygonum aviculare butis sea milkwort, Glauxmaritima , whileoverleaf the pictureof common cottongrass is Eriophorum angustifolium and not E. vaginatum as scripted. Perhaps morecareful checking wasneededin this section? Themainbodyofthebookpresents individual accountsof all our Irishgrassspecies,arranged systematically. The texts throughout arecomprehensive , informative andbeautifully complemented by photographs and illustrations. There is the addition ofa lotofgood information on invertebrates ,which may be of more interest to an agriculturalist thantoa botanist. The superimpositionof theIrishnamesin theold Irishscript is jarring and unattractive. However,a veryuseful feature hasbeentheinclusion ofnumbered 'GreenBoxes ',whichappearthroughout andpresent the salient features ofmanygrasses suchas thosewith coloured sheath bases, grasses with bristly leaves and thosegrasses havingearedleaves.Thereare unnumberedinsertstoo , including, for example, quotations from Gilbert White, Theflorin (Agrostis ) controversy anddescriptions ofergot. Allofthese are engagingand informative and lightenthe otherwise(necessarily) ponderoustone of the maintext. It is withitsecologicalinformation thatthis bookis atitsweakest. The section on theFescues willillustrate thepoint. Festuca pratensis issaidtobe 'one ofthemostimportant andwidespread grasses ofgooddry land'.Thisspecies isalsooneofdamp pastures and manylow-lying CountyLimerick pastures aredominated byit.Festuca arundinacea is saidto be a speciesof'undrained claysoils'when it's also a feature of fen margins and railway embankments, andRed fescue is foundin 'seminatural pastures anddrygrassy places'.Whatabout itsoccurrence onmountains, cliffs, fens, woodsand saltmarshes? The authors areprimarily agriculturalists andsomaybe excused thefinicky demands of theecologist inthisregard. Inplacesthis bookexcels asa polemic onpoor farming, grassland practice and the quotesfrom historical sourcesare apposite,illustrative and frequent. The moststriking of theseis thaton DOI:10.3318/BIOE.2012.26 Biology andEnvironment: Proceedings oftheRoyalIrish Academy, Vol.112B, 317-318 (2012).©RoyalIrish Academy 317 Book Review perennialrye-grass, which was describedby EdmundMurphy 'perhaps themostexhausting of all grasseson land'. There is a veryvaluable digression on the history of its use in the past whenit was grownas a seedlayto collectfrom rather thanforitsvalue as a sourceof grazing, whichisonlyrealised on richlands.Itisuseless on poorsoils.James Anderson stated thatthespecies 'extirpates all othergrasses and thisis worsethan anyofthem'! Thereisa goodsection onperennial rye-grass monocultures anditsuseinanimal health is questioned. So, whydoes modernagribusiness focuson this? Forprofit? Lolium multiflorum seems to actsimilarly. Undersaltmarsh grasses, Puccinellia spp,the value of P. maritima mighthave been highlighted, assheepgrazed on saltmarshes provide excellent lambandmutton, a factwellknownto thesheepfarmers ofcoastal France. The sectionon the meadow-grasses has a number ofshortcomings: theillustrations ofwood meadow-grass looknothing likethespecies inthe wild;Poa humilis is nota speciesofdampground butisfound onwalltops, sanddunesandother dry...

John Ray, physico-theology and afterwards

Ray's most widely read book was his Wisdom of God manifested in the works of creation (1691), probably based on addresses given in the chapel of Trinity College Cambridge 20 years previously. In it he forswore the use of allegory in biblical interpretation, just as he had done in his (and Francis Willughby's) Ornithology (1678). His discipline seeped into theology, complementing the influence of the Reformers and weakening Enlightenment assumptions about teleology, thus softening the hammer-blows of Darwinism on Deism. The physico-theology of the eighteenth century and the popularity of Gilbert White and the like survived the squeezing of natural theology by Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises a century after Wisdom … , and contributed to a peculiarly British understanding of natural theology. This undergirded the subsequent impact of the results of the voyagers and geologists and prepared the way for a modern reading of God's “Book of Works” (“Darwinism … under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend”).Natural theology is often assumed to have been completely discredited by Darwin (as well as condemned by Barth and ridiculed by Dawkins). Notwithstanding, and despite the vapours of vitalism (ironically urged – among others – by Ray's biographer, Charles Raven) and the current fashion for “intelligent design”, the attitudes encouraged by Wisdom … still seem to be robust, albeit needing constant re-tuning (as in all understandings influenced by science).

Apocalypse Narrative, Chaotic System: Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne and Modern Ecology

The catastrophic worldview, which has been formalized into various scientific theories (punctuated equilibrium, chaos, tipping points), covets disaster as its aesthetic, with entropy and negentropy as vying principles. At the close of the eighteenth century, science centered around the new findings of Geology, and scientists like Cuvier, Lamarck, and Buffon debated the predominance of gradual change through time versus sudden, widespread calamities or ‘punctuations.’ This essay investigates Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne (1789), a non-fiction, late eighteenth century natural history chronicle of a single parish through decades of close environmental observation. Its epistolary form conveys an aesthetic of discrete, close readings of nature through time, and the chronicle breaks off with the catastrophic effects of the Laki volcanic eruption of 1783. I suggest ways in which White’s famous work is unusually precocious in ecological methodology, a particularly fruitful angle because my reading goes against the perennial critical reception of Selborne as a tome of Enlightenment balance and economy. Instead, I argue that White’s work is a distinctly modern vision of catastrophic change in nature that foregrounds the contemporary science of Chaos Ecology.

Quietism and Narrative Stillness

A contribution to the sixth installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Apology for Quietism,” this article explores the possibilities for quietist narrative. Since quietism suggests resistance or condescension to telos, suspense, will, and the kinds of spirituality, politics, and ways of being associated with them, it seems unlikely that a narrative would be written or read by a practitioner of “ideal indifference” or by anyone averse on principle to initiative. But Gilbert White's text of 1789, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne comes as close to being a quietist narrative as is conceivable. Describing the environment of a single English parish, White's text places stillness on exhibit as an indication of commitment to an ethics of self-unregarding attentiveness. But the stillness of Selborne, King argues, is a conspicuous stillness—a practice of being still in face of the natural world. As an Anglican minister, White explicitly demonstrates the arguments of eighteenth-century natural theology. Having stilled his will to interfere, he can observe the activity of God's creations; and White does so in order to understand God better. Thus, White's desisting or withdrawal is in no way based in defeatism, indolence, or aimlessness. Moreover, King argues, White aims to produce stillness as a formal quality of his text and, through it, to produce a like stillness and attentiveness in the reader. Quietist narrative is meant to help the reader still his or her acquisitiveness and develop instead observational capabilities, a capacity simply to admire (or stand apart, in awe), and, above all, patience. To the extent that it fosters in us a principled “do nothing” stance with respect to our natural ecology, King concludes, quietism of Gilbert White's kind may represent the most radical of environmental politics.

The forgotten science: a role for natural history in the twenty-first century?*

to natural philosophers who sought to explain the workings of nature as worldly processes decipherable through rational analysis. Gilbert White, Carl Linne, Louis Agassiz, Charles Darwin, and Alfred R. Wallace, among others, looked to nature as the motivating force on earth and sought to better understand how the components of nature operated in a worldly setting, distinct from the mystical interventions of a deity. Many of these men were enthralled by the wonders of nature and were practicing naturalists. Certainly it was the physical beauty of birdlife and bird song that helped draw humankind into the study of nature then as it does today. Today, most practicing biologists grew up with a love of nature and, in many instances, it was this predilection that led them ultimately to the pursuit of science. I can trace my conversion from young citizen to novice naturalist in the late 1950s, when I saw, for the first time, a resplendent adult male Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) high on a dead limb in a park in suburban Baltimore, Maryland. It was a warm summer's evening and my family was enjoying an evening picnic. Hearing the sound of the male's call, I looked up to see the striking red, black, and white of its plumage and was transported. My passion for woodpeckers was further fueled by the words and images in Arthur Cleveland Bent's Life Histories of North American

Natural History and the Novel: Dilatoriness and Length and the Nineteenth-Century Novel of Everyday Life

Our canonical accounts of the novel form, arising out of formalist, psychoanalytic, structuralist, or Marxist interpretive practices, tend pervasively to occlude or ignore altogether one of its most salient elements: description. From Propp's schemas of narrative “functions” to Peter Brooks' textual “motor,” the driving energies of plot are taken as fundamental—to such an extent that a radically nondescriptive subgenre, the detective novel, is understood as a useful model for the novel per se. Such a focus is inevitably distorting—for the nineteenth-century British novel of everyday life, with its affinity for protracted descriptive pauses, more distorting still. Natural history influenced these descriptive practices; this essay argues that nineteenth-century novelistic description borrowed both a structure and an ethical justification from the observational practices of natural history and its knowing debt to natural theology. This borrowing included a delimited focus of attention on small objects or minute areas; the requirement to dilate at length upon such detail, finding much in the small and the quotidian; and the absolute value of close attention upon the detail, which yields truths inaccessible to wider gazes. The essay focuses on Gilbert White's The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789) and Mary Russell Mitford's Our Village (1824-32). It argues that we can detect the trace of a practice of close observation and a set of descriptive modes premised upon dilation of detail and delaying narrative drive, a descriptive mode that was particularly suited to the requirements of natural theology.

Review: Daybooks of Discovery: Nature Diaries in Britain 1770-1870

Review: Daybooks of Discovery: Nature Diaries in Britain 1770-1870 By Mary Ellen Bellanca Reviewed by Elery Hamilton-Smith Charles Sturt University, Australia Bellanca, Mary Ellen. Daybooks of Discovery: Nature Diaries in Britain 1770-1870. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2007. 286 pp. ISBN 9780813926131. US$22.50, paper. At one level, this book is a wonderful literary review of the work of Gilbert White and some of his successors. But to probably most EGJ readers, its interest lies in the extensive discussion of the ways in which the systematic observation of natural phenomena led into modern biological theory. While White’s immediate influence was upon British thought and culture, with the rise of Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin and others, this interest soon spread to the United States (think of Thoreau, Emerson, Muir and their contemporaries) and then throughout the British Empire and the rest of Europe. By the 19 th century systematic observation and recording of detail was accepted as a fundamental base, or even a prerequisite, for the new growth of knowledge. At the same time, the literary culture generated by the nature diaries led in turn to easy acceptance of the concept by explorers and researchers. But even today, I find myself disappointed by the undue neglect of observational research as a result of the emphasis upon measurability and statistical analysis. The diary-keeping tradition was much more than recording of observation; the systematic discipline of journal-keeping led to the organization and so integration of the recorded data. In turn, White and his successors pondered the meaning of their observations and laid the basis for the evolution of theory. The very notion of evolution as expounded by Darwin, Wallace and others had its origins in field observation and consequent thought, not in any experimental or other laboratory-based research. Perhaps we too rarely recognise the extent to which the diary-writers record not only their observations, but the very nature and depth of their interactions with nature, thus giving us a basis for developing the ontology and epistemology of natural history. Of course, writing down of observations is only one way of recording our experience of the natural world. Another genre commenced within the world of visual arts. Biological scientists soon learned to draw upon both literary and artistic means of expression, in both generating their understandings and sharing them with the world. All of this, of course, advanced hand-in-hand with and provided one of the major bases of the enlightenment with its emphasis upon notions of reason and evidence. I think this book should be read by natural scientists with a commitment to advancing the quality of knowledge and hence of education. I have already recommended it to a small group of post-graduate students and they each found a diversity of ideas which supported them in their own personal search for a satisfying epistemology. Elery Hamilton-Smith , Professor, Charles Sturt University, Australia, P.O. Box 36, Carlton South, Victoria 3053, Australia. TEL: (613)9489.77850.

Natural and unnatural complexities: flood control along Manitoba's Assiniboine River

Flooding and flood control long have been topics of concern for geographers and historians of North America, from Gilbert White's foundational work to attempts to understand the recent disaster in New Orleans. This paper considers the problem of flood control along the Assiniboine River in the province of Manitoba, Canada. The first section addresses the local landscape and the larger context, explaining changes in the relevant human and physical geography. The second section examines efforts to mitigate flooding, focusing on how the risk of inundation was shifted in location (not eliminated altogether) and compounded through time (not progressively resolved). The third focuses on a further source of complexity: the contested character of government jurisdiction. This final section also addresses major mid twentieth century changes in mitigation efforts: in the light of flooding on an unprecedented scale, governments became more open to compromise and more willing to undertake substantial projects. Gilbert White asserted that while floods are natural occurrences, flood damages are the responsibility of humanity. The question of responsibility might seem relatively clear in relation to flood mitigation, given that dykes are human constructions. The history of flood mitigation along the Assiniboine would suggest, however, that assigning responsibility for the failures and successes of flood mitigation is not so straightforward.

Foreignness as a constraint on learning: The impact of migrants on disaster resilience in small islands

Knowledge about natural hazard management has increased significantly since Gilbert White's seminal research in 1945, yet people are still badly affected by natural hazards. A key question remains in natural hazards research: why, when all the conditions for effective disaster risk reduction are in place, do some people not take action to reduce their risk of harm? Through a questionnaire-based study we investigated the motivating factors that led residents of the Cayman Islands to prepare for annual tropical cyclones (hurricanes). Factors that increase the likelihood of individuals preparing for hurricanes are: previous experience of major storms, having linking networks and ties, having a child under the age of 15 in the home, and residency status—expatriate residents are less likely to prepare. Factors that appear to prevent adaptive behaviour include: living close to or adjacent to the coast, recent migration to the islands, and living in rented accommodation. The findings of the survey confirm that even within societies that are well prepared for tropical cyclones, there are still sub-groups who do not engage with the preparedness process. In the case of the Cayman Islands, new migrants are the most vulnerable to tropical cyclones as they tend to fall into the demographic groups least likely to prepare for cyclones, live in locations with high levels of exposure to cyclone impacts, and interact mostly with other expatriates with no previous experience of cyclone impacts. As climate change promises to bring an increasing intensity of tropical cyclones, these findings have relevance for all islands which draw on migrant workers to support economic growth.

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Lewis Namier. By Linda Colley Force or Default? The Revolution of 1688-89. Edited by Eveline Cruickshanks. The Impeachment of Warren Hastings. Papers from a Bicentenary Commemoration. Edited by Geoffrey Carnall and Colin Nicholson. Engines of Instruction, Mischief, and Magic: Children's Literature in England from its Beginnings to 1839. By Mary V. Jackson Vathek and The Escape from Time: Bicentenary Revaluations. Edited by Kenneth W. Graham The Closed Space: Horror Literature and Western Symbolism. By Manuel Aguirre Shops and Shopkeeping in Eighteenth-Century England. By Hoh-cheung Mui and Lorna H. Mui Eighteenth Century Europe 1700–1789. By Jeremy Black. The Rise of the European Powers, 1679–1793. By Jeremy Black. Crowds and History: Mass Phenomena in British Towns, 1790–18435. By Mark Harrison The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe. By Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. van de Pol. ‘Tyrant’: The Story of John Barber, Jacobite Lord Mayor of London. By Charles Rivington. Exoticism in the Enlightenment. Edited by G. S. Rousseau and Roy Porter. Patient's Progress: Doctors and Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England. By Dorothy Porter and Roy Porter. The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1768–1776. The First Crisis. By Franco Venturi Culture and Revolution. Edited by Paul Dukes and John Dunkley. Gilbert White and his Records. A Scientific Biography. By Paul G. M. Foster. Voters, Patrons and Parties: The Unreformed Electoral System of Hano verian England 1734–1832. By Frank O'Gorman. Requiem: Variations on Eighteenth-century Themes. By Forrest McDonald and Ellen Shapiro McDonald. Enlightened Absolutism. Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-Century Europe. Edited by H. M. Scott Franklin of Philadelphia. By Esmond Wright. Virtue by Consensus: The Moral Philosophy of Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam Smith. By V. M. Hope. Passion and Value in Hume's Treatise. By Páll S. Ardall. The Science of Man in the Scottish Enlightenment. By Peter Jones. Theatre in Europe: A Documentary History. Restoration and Georgian England, 1660–1788. Edited by David Thomas. Henry Fielding: A Life. By Martin C. Battestin. Alexander Pope: Essays for the Tercentenary. Edited by Colin Nicholson. Swift and his Contexts. Edited by John Irwin Fischer, Hermann J. Real., and James Woolley. Samuel Richardson: Tercentenary Essays. Edited by Margaret Anne Doody and Peter Sabor. The Sign of Angellica. By Janet Todd. Dryden's Final Poetic Mode: The Fables. By Cedric D. Reverand II. A Mirror to Nature: Transformations in Drama and Aesthetics, 1660–1732. By Rose A. Zimbardo. Two-Edg'd Weapons: Style and Ideology in the Comedies of Etherege, Wycherley and Congreve. By Robert Markley. William Congreve: The Critical Heritage. Edited by Alexander Lindsay and Howard Erskine-Hill. The Correspondence of Robert Dodsley, 1733–1764. Edited by James Tierney. Eighteenth-Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology. Edited by Roger Lonsdale. Night Thoughts. By Edward Young. Edited by Stephen Cornford. An Annotated Critical Bibliography of Augustan Poetry. By David Nokes and Janet Barron. Eighteenth-Century Satire: Essays on Text and Context from Dryden to Peter Pindar. By Howard D. Weinbrot. Sterne's Fiction and the Double Principle. By Jonathan Lamb. The Charitable Imperative: Hospitals and Nursing in Ancieo Régime and Revolutionary France. By Colin Jones. Old Age in the Old Regime: Image and Experience in Eighteenth-Century France. By David G. Troyansky. Public Life in Toulouse 1463–1789: From Municipal Republic to Cosmopolitan City. By Robert A. Schneider. Fashionin the French Revolution. By Aileen Ribeiro. La Fin du féodalisme dans le Pays de Caux. By Guy Lemarchand. Journées révolutionnaires á Avignon. By Renté Moulinas. Journées révolutionnaires a Nîmes. By Anne-Marie Duport. Journées révolutionnaires á Toulon. By Malcolm Crook. Journées révolutionnaîres á Toulouse. By Georges Fournier. Les Tragédies bibliques au XVIIIe siécle. By Mireille Herr. Tradition und Neubeginn Lessings Orientierung an der europaischen Tradition. By Henk de Wild. Volksaufklärung. Bibliographisches Handbuch zur Popularierung aufklärerischen Denkens im deutschen Sprachraum von den Antángen bis 1850. Edited by Holger Böning and Reinhart Siegert. Riforma della Metafisica e Sapere Scientifico, Saggio su J. H. Lambert (1728–1777). By Fabio Todesco. Reasonable Enthusiast. John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism. By Henry D. Rack. The Treatment of Christian Doctrine by Philosophers of the Natural Light froḿ Descartes to Berkeley. By William H. Trapnell. The Life and ‘Mémories Secrets’ of Jean Des Champs (1707–1767). By Uta Janssens-Knorsch. The Autobiography of Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury. Edited by John S. Macauley and R. W. Greaves. Mrs Coade's Stone. By Alison Kelly. The Georgian Public Buildings of Leeds and the West Riding. By Kevin Grady. 1791: Mozart's Last Year. By H. C. Robbins Landon. Haydn: His Life and Music. Edited by H. C. Robbins Landon and David Wyn Jones.

Gilbert White: progress in geography

Gilbert White: progress in geography

The extraordinary career of Gilbert White

The extraordinary career of Gilbert White

Gilbert F. White, 1911–2006 Local Legacies, National Achievements, and Global Visions

Gilbert White’s extraordinary life, as befits an outstanding geographer of the twentieth century, can be appreciated in both spatial and environmental terms. His major preoccupation with the relationship of humankind and nature first took shape in the localities of his early years at his parent’s home in Hyde Park (Chicago), and at his father’s part-owned 6,000-acre Quarter-Circle-Bell Ranch along the Tongue River near Dayton, Wyoming. In both places Gilbert experienced the strains and stimulation of growing up in a diverse community—the sometimestensemixtureofracial,eth

Review: Gilbert White: A Biography of the Author of The Natural History of Selborne, by Richard Mabey

Review: Gilbert White: A Biography of the Author of The Natural History of Selborne. By Richard Mabey Reviewed by Elery Hamilton-Smith Charles Sturt University, Australia Mabey, Richard. Gilbert White: A Biography of the Author of The Natural History of Selborne. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007. 239pp. ISBN 978-0-8139-2649-0. US$16.50. Permit me to commence with a little personal reminiscence. I grew up in a rural area, and at 8 years of age (a year prior to attending school as it entailed a three-mile walk), I was given a copy of White’s Natural History. It confirmed my nascent interest in and feeling for the natural environment, and cemented it firmly into a permanent home within my mind. White was one of the first to write about natural history with a “sense of intimacy, or wonder or respect – in short, of human engagement with nature.”Many of those who read and re-read this wondrous book knew that White was curate in a small English village and that both Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington had encouraged White to systematically record his observations and descriptive studies of the village. The outcome was the book that so many of us know and love – one of the most frequently published English language books of all time. It appears as a series of letters to each of White’s great mentors. Regrettably White wrote very little, even in his extensive journals and diaries, of his personal life or feelings. Mabey has made an exhaustive search of the available data, and has built a delightful re-construction of the author as a person. He commences by describing the landscape and lanes of Selborne – which might have been designed to help the human observer to feel a relationship with nature. Gilbert’s ancestors had long lived in the village and he had been born there, left for a considerable period, entered the university life at Oxford, but eventually returned to his home village and spent most of his life there. But the early years were full of wandering and seemingly seeking some purpose in life. On returning, and his appointment as curate of the village, he developed an enthusiasm for gardening, and, in turn, this led him to his painstaking observation of the natural world and a remarkable holism in understanding it. He wrote elegantly of the scenes and creatures of his daily life, but again his approach was a rambling and somewhat directionless one. At one stage he played with the idea of a text but failed to find satisfaction. It is not quite clear why he decided to abandon this, although his regular correction of the errors made by his friend Thomas Pennant may well have been important – he was indeed a font of knowledge, but also had an underlying humility which made him aware of the impossibility of total knowledge. He was delighted in his voyaging through the ocean of ideas, but clearly found the voyage more satisfying then the arrival. Then he realized that the story of his voyage was expressed in his letters to Pennant and Barrington, and that might be the basis of a real book. So, he devoted great attention to editing his letters. It has long been recognized that, in order to provide the context and introduction, he even wrote but never sent further “letters” to Pennant. Mabey gained access to both the original Electronic Green Journal , Issue 26, Spring 2008 ISSN: 1076-7975

Ted Dadswell, The Selborne pioneer: Gilbert White as naturalist and scientist, a re-examination, 2nd rev. ed., London, Centaur Press, 2006, pp. xix, 256, illus., £14.95 (paperback 978-0-900001-56-7).

Ted Dadswell, The Selborne pioneer: Gilbert White as naturalist and scientist, a re-examination, 2nd rev. ed., London, Centaur Press, 2006, pp. xix, 256, illus., £14.95 (paperback 978-0-900001-56-7). - Volume 52 Issue 2

Missionary Masculinities, the Homoerotic Gaze and the Politics of Race: Gilbert White in Northern Australia, 1885–1915

The considerable international literature on Christian missions and gender has rarely focused on missionary masculinity, or on the relationship between missionary homoeroticism and the defence of the rights of the colonised. This paper argues that homoeroticism played a part in the humanitarianism of Gilbert White who, from 1900 to 1915, was Anglican Bishop of Carpentaria in northern Australia, a heavily male frontier where inter‐racial tension and violence were common. White's attraction to the Aboriginal male body indirectly assisted all Aborigines by drawing attention to the ill effects of colonisation but his ambivalence to the female body left him uninterested in the plight of Aboriginal women, who suffered ‘extraordinary brutality’ on the frontier.