
Bloom
The Botanical Vernacular in the English Novel
Amy M. King(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 9. October 2003
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-19-516151-9 (ISBN)
Description
Starting from the botanical crazes inspired by Linnaeus in the eighteenth century, and exploring the variations it spawned - natural history, landscape architecture, polemical battles over botany's prurience - this study offers a fresh, detailed reading of the courtship novel from Jane Austen to George Eliot and Henry James. By reanimating a cultural understanding of botany and sexuality that we have lost, it provides an entirely new and powerful account of the novel's role in scripting sexualized courtship, and illuminates how the novel and popular science together created a cultural figure, the blooming girl, that stood at the center of both fictional and scientific worlds.
Reviews / Votes
Unusually for an academic study, Bloom combines meticulous attention to the detail of cultural history and vigorous readings of nineteenth-century fiction with the breathless excitement of someone who has stumbled upon a story never previously told. * Alison Stenton, Times Literary Supplement *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
numerous halftones and one line illustration
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
603 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-516151-9 (9780195161519)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
Amy M. King is Assistant Professor of English at St. John's University
Author
Assistant Professor of LiteratureAssistant Professor of Literature, California Institute of Technology

