Travel Writing and the Natural World, 1768 1840
Also by Paul Smethurst THE POSTMODERN CHRONOTOPE: Reading Space and Time in Contemporary Fiction ASIAN CROSSINGS: Travel Writing on China, Japan and Southeast Asia ( ed. with Steve Clark ) TRAVEL WRITING, FORM, AND EMPIRE ( ed. with Julia Kuehn )
Travel Writing and the Natural World, 1768 1840 Paul Smethurst
Paul Smethurst 2012 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-1-137-03035-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-44039-9 ISBN 978-1-137-03036-8 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137030368 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
In Memory of G.R. Smethurst and C.W. Smethurst
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Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements viii ix 1 Introduction 1 2 The Scientific Gaze and Museum Order 16 3 Natural History in the Contact Zone 43 4 Natural Order: Metaphor and Structure 68 5 Romantic Technique and Humboldtian Vision 88 6 Landscape and Nation-Building 109 7 The English Picturesque as Social Order 128 8 Natural Sublime and Feminine Sublime 153 9 Prescribing Nature: William Wordsworth s Guide Through the Lakes 171 10 Textual Landscapes and Disappearing Nature 181 Conclusion and Coda 196 Notes 205 Bibliography 226 Index 235 vii
Illustrations Cover: William Hodges. Detail from Tahiti Revisited (1776). Licensed by the National Maritime Museum. BHC2396 4.1 View from near the entrance inside Fingal s Cave, Staffa (Scotland) by William Daniell. Illustration to Ayton s Voyage round Great Britain (1817). Licensed by the British Museum (Collection no. AN952840001) 70 4.2 William Hodges, [Cascade Cove] Dusky Bay (1775) National Maritime Museum. Licensed by the National Maritime Museum BHC2371 77 5.1 Detail from copy of plate from Alexander Von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland, Essay on the Geography of Plants (1807) 106 7.1 William Gilpin. Flat country seen between trees on high ground; with a ruin to left, c. 1770 1798. Pen and brown ink and grey wash, over graphite. Trustees of the British Museum (Collection no. AN00273913) 133 7.2 Print by Francis Jukes (after William Gilpin). Proof of an illustration to William Gilpin s Picturesque Scenery on the Banks of the Wye ; oval view of Goodrich Castle, seen at the top of a hill, a steep, wooded cliff to right, trees on another bank to left, the river in the foreground. c. 1782. Etching and aquatint with yellow wash added by hand.trustees of the British Musuem (Collection no. AN1438300001) 146 viii
Acknowledgements Fittingly for a study of travel writing, this book is the result of a good deal of travelling between places and libraries around the world. The research took place over several years mainly in libraries in London and Hong Kong. The interlibrary loan facilities and the online resources at the University of Hong Kong were especially useful. In the UK, the staff at the London Library, Senate House and the British Library were all very helpful. Special thanks to Chris Sutherns for supplying images from the British Museum for Chapters 4 and 7, and to Julie Cochrane at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, for supplying the image for the book s jacket. The exotic natural world of Tahiti presented in Hodges painting is a wonderful portal to the book, if a little misleading; its neo-classical idealisation of pre-lapserian nature is a strand of eighteenth-century aesthetics which actually runs counter to the scientific, mercantile and aesthetic realism described here. Thanks also to Prof. Detlev Doherr in Germany for permission to use an image of Chimborazo from the Humboldt Digital Library for Chapter 5. Great debts of gratitude are due to those who read early drafts which were shockingly undeveloped. For their encouraging and helpful comments, the following deserve special thanks: in the UK, Malcolm Andrews, Ben Colbert and Peter Hulme; in Hong Kong, Jeremy Tambling; in Tokyo, Steve Clark (who heroically waded through a complete early draft, giving line-by-line comments); in the US, Mary Campbell. I would also like to thank the several anonymous readers for their constructive comments, and I hope those who rightly caned an earlier version of the book won t recognise this as the same one. A version of Chapter 6 was previously published as Peripheral Vision, Landscape, and Nation-Building in Thomas Pennant s Tours of Scotland, 1769 72 in Travel Writing and Tourism in Britain and Ireland, edited by Benjamin Colbert. Thanks to Ben and Palgrave Macmillan for permission to republish this here. Julia Kuehn at HKU deserves special thanks for much of the primary research back in 2006, and for continued support since. I would like to thank everyone at the University of Hong Kong who helped, especially the School of English for tolerating my frequent disappearing acts to ix
x Acknowledgements Lamma Island, where the real work was done (between coffee breaks at the Green Cottage). Rebecca s contribution has been immeasurable. Thanks to her for being there, reading everything, putting errant commas in their place and pointing sentences in the right direction. Finally, I would like to thank all the staff at Palgrave Macmillan, especially Paula Kennedy and Ben Doyle who have been so efficient and always given good advice and generous support. It is a delightful irony that a study of travel writing across the globe should find its way into print in Basingstoke... where I was born!