Groups and Locations

history, natural, Darwin, romantic, specie, plant, animal, taxonomy, timeline

This is the website for A Romantic Natural History, which has been developed by Ashton Nichols of Dickinson College in the United States. The site aims to survey relationships between literature and natural history in the century before the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Natural Species (1859). The site provides background information on the work of natural historians from Aristotle and Pliny in the ancient world, through to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This survey takes account of landmark scientific developments, and the interplay between science and mythology. The main focus of the resource is the development of natural history during the Romantic period. Ashton Nichol looks at the impact of particular scientists on the imaginations of writers such as Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, John Keats and William Wordsworth. The site is constructed so that it is possible to search literary authors by name, or through a list of major scientists of the period. These include Erasmus Darwin and Henry David Thoreau. The site is attractively designed with interesting images relating to early natural history. There is also a searchable list of artists' names for those working on pictorial representations of the natural world in the Romantic period.