The Letters of Sir Joseph Banks
A Selection, 1768-1820
Neil Chambers (Ed)
Sir Joseph Banks was man of science, of affairs, and of letters. He circumnavigated the globe with Lieutenant James Cook on HMS Endeavour, 1768-1771, taking with him a team of naturalists, illustrators and assistants at a personal cost of £10,000. Together they made unprecedented collections of flora and fauna in many of the places HMS Endeavour visited. Banks also led the first British scientific expedition to Iceland in 1772. Later, he settled in London, and assembled an enormous library and herbarium at 32 Soho Square. His collections were remarkable both for their size and for the unique material they contained from the Pacific. In 1778 Banks was elected President of the Royal Society, a position he held for over 41 years - the longest anyone has served in that capacity. As President he fostered enlightened relations between scientists across Europe throughout a period of conflict and turbulent change. He was also Special Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which flourished under his control, becoming greater than any other. Voyages of discovery were mounted with his help to explore new lands, to obtain and move plants from one part of the world to another, and to further British interests abroad. He was also an influential Privy Counsellor, and an advisor to George III and successive governments.
Banks was at the scientific and social centre of Georgian life for more than five decades. As such he developed a global network of correspondence, using letters to further knowledge, and ultimately to shape events in the cause of empire. He suggested the possibility of establishing colonies on the east coast of Australia, and then he actively supported them for the remainder of his life. He has therefore been regarded by some as the 'Father of Australia'. Furthermore, in the Napoleonic Wars he acted to save the population of Iceland when its trade was seized by the British. His views could hardly be avoided on matters of botany or horticulture, drainage or agriculture, on coinage, exploration or science in general. Yet he was a warm, authoritative writer with a direct, flowing prose style. His letters make fascinating reading for their variety, as well as the insight they provide into his public and private life.
This selection is made from the remaining 6,000 letters Banks wrote, and will introduce many readers to a deeply impressive figure, who is rapidly being recognized as one of the great men of his age.
Published by Imperial College Press.
Reviews
' This selection helps to restore to the map of late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century intellectual life a figure too long absent and a great master of the art of letter-writing. It offers a glimpse of the long-submerged epistolary riches that provide such insight into the character of a remarkable individual and his age.'
Nature, 2001
'Browsing through these letters gives a splendid indication of Banks's changing and comprehensive interests ... this will do much to establish Banks's reputation in his native country.'
Notes and Records of The Royal Society, 2002
' ... the current volume should be warmly welcomed by Banks scholars and more general readers alike as early fruit of the Banks Archive Project. It is to be hoped that the Project will succeed in making the rich diversity of Banksian correspondence available to further promote understanding of the man, his exploits and his historical significance.'
The British Journal for the History of Science, June 2002
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Specifications
ISBN: 1 86094 204 0
Price: £33 (US$48)
Format: Hardback
Size: 248 x 152 mm
Extent: 200 pp (approx)
Published: Spring 2000
Subject classification: History of science Readership: Students and researchers in the history of science, history and literature
Order from:
World Scientific Publishing
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