Clandestine Marriage: Botany and Romantic Culture

357 Pages·2012·2.868 MB·English

by  Theresa M. Kelley

Clandestine Marriage
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Clandestine
Marriage
Botany and Romantic Culture
theresa m. kelley
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2012
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kelley, Theresa M.
Clandestine marriage : botany and Romantic culture / Theresa M. Kelley.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4214-0517-9 (hdbk. : acid-free paper) —
ISBN 1-4214-0517-2 (hdbk. : acid-free paper)
1. Literature, Modern—19th century—History and criticism. 2. Botany
in literature. 3. Plants in literature. 4. Literature and
science. 5. Romanticism. I. Title.
PN56.B73K45 2012
8099.93364–-dc23 2012002236
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book.
For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or
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The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book
materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30
percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xi
1 Introduction 1
2 Botanical Matters 17
3 Botany’s Publics and Privates 52
4 Botanizing Women 90
5 Clare’s Commonable Plants 126
INTERLUDE ONE Mala’s Garden: A Caribbean Interlude 159
6 Reading Matter and Paint 162
INTERLUDE two A Romantic Garden: Shelley on Vitality and Decay 210
7 Restless Romantic Plants and Philosophers 216
8 Conclusion 246
Notes 263
Bibliography 299
Index 325
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Illustrations
Following page 66
1 Wheat Stalk study, Franz Bauer
2 Stems and Petioles, Franz Bauer
3 Rafflesia arnoldi, Franz Bauer
4 The American Cowslip, Peter Henderson
5 Dragon Arum, Peter Henderson
6 Curious American Bog Plants, Philip Reinagle, artist, D. Maddan, engraver
7 Venus Fly-Trap, William Bartram
8 Bandana of the Everglades or Golden Canna, William Bartram
9 American Lotus, etc., William Bartram
10 Exhibition Extraordinaire in the Horticultural Room, G. Cruik shank
11 Trapa bispinosa, Roxburgh Indian artist
Following page 98
12 Young Daughter of the Picts, Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues
13 Sensitive Flower, J. J. Grandville
14 Lichen pyxidalus, Frances Beaufort Edgeworth
15 Ophrys apifera. Bee Orchis or Beeflower, Frances Beaufort Edgeworth
16 Dryas octopetala, Frances Beaufort Edgeworth
17 Bigonia and Aristolochia, Frances Beaufort Edgeworth
18 Passiflora (species not indicated), Frances Beaufort Edgeworth
19 Magnolia grandiflora, Mary Delany
20 Passiflora laurifolia, Mary Delany
21 Ixia Crocata (Triandria Monogynia), Mary Delany
22 Physalis, Winter Cherry, Mary Delany
23 Rara avis, after Katherine Charteris Grey
24 Cycnoches Loddigensii, Katherine Charteris Grey
25 Pterostylis obtusa, Katherine Charteris Grey
viii illustrations
26 Erica pubescens, Katherine Charteris Grey
27 Orphrys muscifera, Fly Orchis, James Sowerby
Following page 178
28 Banian Tree, Maria Graham
29 The Indian Burr, or, Banian Tree, James Forbes
30 Convolvulus gangeticus R., Roxburgh Indian artist
31 Pandanus odoratissimus [fruit], Roxburgh artist
32 Pandanus odoratissimus [whole plant]
33 Borassus flabelliformis
34 Trapa bispinosa [detail], Roxburgh artist
35 Nymphaea lotus alba, Roxburgh Indian artist
36 Nelumbium speciosum, Roxburgh Indian artist
37 Nymphea Lotos, Blue Water-Lily of Guzerat, James Forbes
38 Leea macrophylla, Roxburgh Indian artist
39 Bombax heptaphyllum, Roxburgh Indian artist
40 Saccharum exaltatum, Roxburgh Indian Artist
41 Calamus rotang, Roxburgh Indian Artist
42 Menyanthes cristata, Roxburgh Indian artist
43 Pistia stratiotes, Roxburgh Indian artist
44 Trichosanthes heteroclita, Roxburgh Indian artist
45 [Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala], G. Cruikshank
46 Orchidaceae title page, Bateman
47 Vignette, after Schomburgkia Tibicinis orchid plate
48 Cycnoches Ventricosum, Jane Edwards
49 Orchidaceae tail-piece, after Katherine Charteris Grey
Acknowledgments
I dedicate this book to Thomas Baylis, always my companion as I wrote this book in
Austin, then Madison, on Lake Superior, across three continents, and over several years.
My work on the book has received generous support, beginning with fellowships
from the University of Texas at Austin, the American Society for Eighteenth-Century
Studies, and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. At the University of
Wisconsin–Madison, the Marjorie and Lorin Tiefenthaler Fund, the English De-
partment, the Graduate School, and the Institute for Research in the Humanities
have provided time to write. Residential fellowships at the Henry E. Huntington
Library and the Yale Center for British Art supported the final stages of research. The
National Endowment for the Humanities and the Simon D. Guggenheim Founda-
tion awarded year-long fellowships as I completed this book. I am most grateful to all.
Numerous archives and their professional staffs have made this book pos-
sible, among them the Botany Library of the Natural History Museum, London,
in particular Malcolm Beasley, the librarian, and Judith Magee, now curator for
the Natural History Library. At the Library and Herbarium of the Royal Botanic
Garden, Kew, James Kay, former assistant curator, Prints and Drawings, willingly
made resources at Kew accessible. Gina Douglas, former librarian of the Linnean
Society, London, introduced me to the resources of that library early on, and on
one visit invited me to ride in a van taking Linnaeus’s butterfly collection across
London. Henry J. Noltie, taxonomist at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, has
advised this project with unstinting generosity, answered questions of all kinds, and
introduced me to the Indian botanical drawings at Edinburgh and elsewhere. If
there are mistakes in this book, he is decidedly not responsible. Peter Stevens and
David Mabberley have answered nearly as many questions.
Jim Folsom, director of the Huntington Botanical Gardens, and staff mem-
bers Kitty Connolly and Katrina White have welcomed inquiries and entertained
notions. At the Henry E. Huntington Library, Alan Jutzi, Mary Robertson, Steve
Tabor, and Jean-Robert Durbin offered archival direction. At the Yale Center for
British Art, its Director Amy Meyers and her colleagues, Michael Hatt, Elizabeth
Fairman, Gillian Forrester‚ Scott Wilcox‚ Lisa Ford, and Melissa Fournier Gold have