Victorian Sensation : The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

by James A. Secord

Fiction or philosophy, profound knowledge or shocking heresy? When Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was published anonymously in 1844, it sparked one of the greatest sensations of the Victorian era. More than a hundred thousand readers were spellbound by its startling vision—an account of the world that extended from the formation of the solar system to the spiritual destiny of humanity. As gripping as a popular novel, Vestiges combined all the current scientific theories in fields ranging from astronomy and geology to psychology and economics. The book was banned, it was damned, it was hailed as the gospel for a new age. This is where our own public controversies about evolution began.

In a pioneering cultural history, James A. Secord uses the story of Vestiges to create a panoramic portrait of life in the early industrial era from the perspective of its readers. We join apprentices in a factory town as they debate the consequences of an evolutionary ancestry. We listen as Prince Albert reads aloud to Queen Victoria from a book that preachers denounced as blasphemy vomited from the mouth of Satan. And we watch as Charles Darwin turns its pages in the flea-ridden British Museum library, fearful for the fate of his own unpublished theory of evolution. Using secret letters, Secord reveals how Vestiges was written and how the anonymity of its author was maintained for forty years. He also takes us behind the scenes to a bustling world of publishers, printers, and booksellers to show how the furor over the book reflected the emerging industrial economy of print.

Beautifully written and based on painstaking research, Victorian Sensation offers a new approach to literary history, the history of reading, and the history of science. Profusely illustrated and full of fascinating stories, it is the most comprehensive account of the making and reception of a book (other than the Bible) ever attempted.

 Winner of the 2002 Pfizer Award from the History of Science Society

Genres: History, Science, Nonfiction, Natural History, History Of Science, 19th Century, Evolution

624 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2001

About the author

James Andrew Secord (born 18 March 1953) is an American-born historian. He is a professor of history and philosophy of science within the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Christ's College. He is also the director (since 2006) of the project to publish the complete Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Secord is especially well-known for his award-winning work on the reception of the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a pioneering evolutionary book first published in 1844.

Reviews

[JC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this bulging book for a Victorian Science class. It was surprisingly fun to read. I weirdly enjoyed one section that details all the mundane technical aspects of the steam press, in a quasi-Marxist fixation on the means of production, to examine the emerging media form of the periodical press and its role in popularizing Robert Chambers’ Vestiges. There was also quite a bit written on a host of other emerging industrial infrastructures, such as the railway and the postal service, and their role in spreading theories of evolution throughout a new middle-class market. My classmate found the section on the steam press tremendously boring, but I suspect sitting through actually boring engineering classes renders something like this very interesting. Also quite a bit on Owenite socialism and other utopian strains of socialism were commented upon throughout. This was very relevant because the popularization of science often occurred through the commodification of science, which the ‘gentlemen of science’ were attempting to distance themselves from, not out of solidarity with working people, but because scientists should be wealthy enough to insulate themselves from the sensationalist impulses of commodified popular science.

This is an excerpt that touches on the surprising radical politics was interacting with science and religion during the mid 19th century:

“Many working-class political leaders were as eager as Miller was to distance themselves from the atheists. The president of the London Communist Propaganda Society had called the Oracle “a worthless production, a lilliputean printed disgrace, a pigmean illiterate dishonour to the cause.” Most of the remaining Owenites, while critical of organized Christianity, did not deny the existence of a deity. The erstwhile hammerer of the godly, Richard Carlile, was now advocating what he called “Sacred Socialism.” Even those without faith avoided offending religious sensibilities, for key leaders of Chartism were Christians, especially in the manufacturing districts. To run a great political movement aground on theological controversy would have been pointless. (Anticlerical-ism, where politics and religion overlapped directly, was a different matter.) With thousands out of work and starving, debating the origin of the human race or the implications of geology seemed a useless distraction. Vestiges was not reviewed in the Chartist press. Working-class leaders who did combine religion with radicalism thought Vestiges stressed the least convincing aspects of the case against orthodoxy. Transmutation was seen as silly. The Chartist preacher, phrenologist, publisher, and deist Joseph Barker of the northern industrial city of Leeds ridiculed the book in his penny weekly The People, whose twenty thousand copies were read almost entirely by working men and women:”

The anonymity of Vestiges and speculations that attached the work to various women also contributed to a very interesting proliferation of women’s literature and publishing, specifically on the popularization of science during the period Chambers had not yet been confirmed as the author of Vestiges.

[Jed Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A challenging but worthwhile granular study of diverse readerly responses to a work that would otherwise be assimilated to the teleological narrative of The Age of Darwin. I’ll admit I almost gave up halfway through but was glad to have forged ahead as the second half is in many ways the most fascinating. An astonishingly well-researched and detailed history of how the Victorians read science.

[C. B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Secord is a historian of science. This weighty study of Robert Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) is one of the finest history books I’ve read. Through utter immersion in his sources—including newspapers, magazines, journals, diaries, letters, and autobiographies—Secord paints a picture of Victorian life and thought. His prose is vivid and seeks to give a feeling of the people and ideas he describes. I won’t be approaching popular cultural sources in the same way again. We need to think about reading as an open-ended process. Secord is excellent at showing us the futures—both fearful and wonderful—that seemed possible in moments that have slipped away. This is for anyone who is fascinated by how books reflect and shape us.

[Mike Sutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Secord is without a doubt the leading expert of all time on Robert Chambers's "The Vestiges of Creation"

Secord tells us why Chambers' book was so successful, why it was criticized and why its author remained anonymous until after his death.

I recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand a major part of the story about why "evolution was in the air" in the first half of the 19th century.

But in writing this superb and brilliantly scholarly story, Secord failed to see the most important connection between Chambers and Darwin. Because, not only did Darwin meet Chambers, not only did they correspond and not only did Darwin know Chambers was the secret author of "Vestiges" - Chambers had - in 1832 - over a decade before he penned the "Vestiges" actually read and cited Patrick Matthew's 1831 book that contained the full theory of natural selection. It seems more likely than not, therefore, that some form of 'knowledge contamination' of Matthew's discovery took place between Matthew and Chambers and then from Chambers to Darwin. So much now for the self-serving Darwinist myth - started by Darwin - that Matthew's book failed to influence anyone!

If Secord had discovered this crucial fact about Matthew and Chambers then HIS book would have been an international sensation - because according to Darwin no naturalist known to him had read Matthew's book until 1860 - the year after Darwin's Origin was first published. Darwin lied!

Hopefully, we will see a second edition of Secord's excellent book now that Darwin's cat is out the bag. Before then, however, Professor Secord will need to come up to speed with the New Data by reading Nullius in Verba - Darwin's Greatest Secret

[Selena · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it was nice to have this book tie in everything we've talked about in class, and I understand that it was quite an achievement to get all aspects of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation publication (not to mention this is exactly what I want to do with Asian-American history), I found the subject matter quite boring. I would, however, like to read Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation very much.

[Lashonda Slaughter Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only concrete complaint about this book is that I believe that Secord essentially tries to cover too much in one book, thus making his arguments at times...convoluted. That being said, the connection to reform with the growth of the Victorian print culture...explained through the publication and response to one book is one of the more interesting historical monographs I've read this year.
It did make me want to study the culture more and I believe his views are on point... but the book can bog itself down rather quickly.

[Suzanne Hess · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author tells us his thesis is to paint "a full-length picture of how a substantial range of contemporary readers made meaning from a single work" (522). He paints with strokes which aid to the readers understanding. This is a thinkers book.

[Russ Olsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the title, it's not erotica. It's about a book that hit the stores 20 years before Darwin. Very, very through history.

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was very thorughly researched . Only likely to appeal to someonw iwth a deep interest in the history of the idea of evoloution.I enjoyed it but it was a tough read

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, masterful, and amazing.

[Mills College Library]

576.80941 S4459 2000