Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T02:22:44.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction - Dinosaurs in Transition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2021

Richard Fallon
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access

Summary

This introduction sketches a cultural history of dinosaur palaeontology in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, indicating how the book addresses the lack of literary work on the understanding of dinosaurs in this period. While dinosaurs were a British area of science in the first half of the nineteenth century, American palaeontologists took clear pre-eminence in this field from the 1870s. American research transformed dinosaurs from giant lizards into a far stranger and more heterogenous group. Fallon argues that literary scholars have not yet grappled with this cultural shift in perceptions of the dinosaurs, an omission made all the more striking by the fact that it was during the decades around 1900 that ‘dinosaur’ first became a household word. Built into this word were important ideas about imperialism, progress, romance, and the practice of science. Fallon explains how exploring this subject provides wider insights into the relationships between literature and science and between popular and specialist science writers, in addition to its value as a case study on the transatlantic nature of literary media at the end of the nineteenth century.

Type
Chapter
Information
Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature
How the ‘Terrible Lizard' Became a Transatlantic Cultural Icon
, pp. 1 - 28
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Dinosaurs in Transition
  • Richard Fallon, University of Birmingham
  • Book: Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature
  • Online publication: 28 October 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108989008.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Dinosaurs in Transition
  • Richard Fallon, University of Birmingham
  • Book: Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature
  • Online publication: 28 October 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108989008.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Dinosaurs in Transition
  • Richard Fallon, University of Birmingham
  • Book: Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature
  • Online publication: 28 October 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108989008.001
Available formats
×