Bright Paradise: Victorian Scientific Travellers

by PeterRaby (Author)

• Used

  Import
  1996

  $3.24

  This is an account of the great burst of scientific exploration in the 19th century: the search for the North-West passage; the penetration of the Australian outback; and the hunt for the sources of the Nile, Niger, Amazon and Brahmaputra. There are the individual stories of personalities such as Charles Darwin, ALfred Wallace, Henry Bates and Richard Spruce, but the focal point of the book is how these journeys were linked to wider issues: the growth of knowledge; the spread of Empire; the image of the wild ; and the great Victorian questions of the creation, origins and ascent of man.

• Used

  Paperback
  1997

  $3.24

  'A fabulously rich, anecdotal and gripping account of those men and women who ventured out from Britain into the swamps and jungles of the tropics in search, knowingly or not, of the missing link. Through their stoical-sometimes crack-brained-voyages, the shape of the world, geographically and biologically, was elucidated. Never have more significant journeys been made. . . . Enthusiastic, informed and racy, this is one of the most invigorating accounts of the exploits of people from an age whose intrepidity is staggering. ' 'Peter Raby's book follows a disparate crew of botanists, scientists and collectors, who tried to order the earthly paradise which unfolded around them. Entrepreneurs they may have been - many were dependent on selling their specimens to finance their trips-but they were also scrupulous and sensitive observers. . . . Raby finds some shimmering, personalities. . . . His book is excellent. ' DAILY TELEGRAPH