The economy of vegetation
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The economy of vegetation
(The collected writings of Erasmus Darwin / introduced by Martin Priestman, v. 1 . The botanic garden : a poem in two parts ; 1)
Thoemmes Continuum, 2004
- : set
Available at 8 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Reprint of the 1791 ed. printed by J. Nichols for J. Johnson, London
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was an accomplished scientist and inventor, and a best-selling poet whose style had a marked influence on Wordsworth and other Romantics. At the same time he was one of the most successful doctors in 18th-century England (he was offered - and refused - the post of royal physician to George III). Darwin was one of the founders of the Lunar Society in Birmingham and his friends included James Watt, Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgwood and Joseph Priestley. He also corresponded with Joseph Banks and Benjamin Franklin. Among his many inventions was a horizontal windmill, a "talking machine", and a steering mechanism that was eventually adapted for use in modern cars. In his writings Darwin was equally ground-breaking. He translated and explained the Linnaean (sexual) system of botany and popularized it in the risque verse of "The Botanic Garden". In Zoonomia he laid out a new system of disease classification and put forward a theory of biological evolution a full 70 years before his grandson, Charles. Darwin's "Plan for the Conduct of Female Education" was an outstanding 18th-century treatment of that theme.
His book "Phytologia" summarized plant physiology and advocated progressive scientific agriculture, stressing the continuity between plant and animal life. In his last great poem, "The Temple of Nature", Darwin rejected the Biblical creation myth in favour of a naturalistic anticipation of the "big bang" theory. This set of scarce and illustrated books in their best editions, prefixed by Martin Priestman's new introduction, should be of interest to historians of science and literary specialists alike.
Table of Contents
- Volumes 1 & 2 "The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts" (1791): Volume 1 - "The Economy of Vegetation" (366pp)
- Volume 2 - "The Loves of the Plants" (230pp). Volume 3 (128pp) "A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools" (1797). Volume 4 (632pp) "Phytologia - or The Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening" (1800). Volumes 5, 6, 7 & 8 "Zoonomia, or The Laws of Organic Life" (3rd edition, corrected, 1801): Volume 5 530pp
- Volume 6 568pp
- Volume 7 512pp
- Volume 8 494pp. Volume 9 (304pp) "The Temple of Nature, or The Origin of Society" (1803).
by "Nielsen BookData"