Dr. Brian Dolan- Literature and Science 1660-1834: Chemistry (2004)

This collection highlights the common ground between fields that were once thought to be independent of one another. Its appearance is particularly timely because the periodisation of history, the nature of the new knowledge and the relationship between literature, history and culture are currently receiving sustained and fruitful critical attention.

Science and literature were until recently two fields thought to be distinct, fenced in by special languages and cultivating different bodies of knowledge. In the long eighteenth century there were no such distinctions and there was considerable cross fertilisation between literature and scientific advancement. At that time, people pursuing a wide range of interests met socially in shared spaces such as learned societies and coffee houses, and were also united in one person, in the figure of the polymath and virtuoso.

Literature and Science reproduces, in facsimile, primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and the editorial matter provides overviews and extensive references, with a consolidated index at the end of each four-volume set. These volumes provide a much-needed resource for specialised academics, and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long eighteenth century.

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"Chemistry" is Volume 8 of an 8 volume set (two sets of 4 volumes sold separately) in the Literature and Science series, general editor Dr. Judith Hawley.
1 85196 740 0: Volumes 5 – 8 : £350/$595
1944pp: 234x156mm: February 2004

View more information about the rest of the series by visiting Pickering and Chatto.