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Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
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we watch as Charles Darwin turns its pages in the flea-ridden British Museum library, fearful for the fate of his own unpublished theory of evolution.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
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
624 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2001
About the author
James A. Secord
27 books2 followersJames 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.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 31, 2021
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.
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.
January 10, 2023
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.
May 1, 2026
Always finding out that there’s a whole lot more to knowing what you think you know is forever a treat. Ask anyone—and this includes me before I discovered the existence of this book—what the most controversial science book of the 19th century was and you’d most likely get the same answer from anyone. And truth be told, perhaps from the time *that* book was published (and it should be obvious which one), it may have held the crown, but it turns out what *that* book may have perfected with some pretty solid scientific proof of natural selection was already strongly hinted at several decades prior in a book that truly became—for a time (important!)—a sensation like no other.
Secord, James A.. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (p. 23). The University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.
Not only a biography, not only a history book, not only a critique, but a tome almost double the length of the work of the hour, 1844’s “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation”, that covers its reception history and it being perhaps the crux of many a mid-19th century debate from any and all sides. No stone left unturned and done in a way that really rewards the curiosity reader as it’s all the more important to never forget why we know what we know. Thus, for those who really just want to know about the book itself, one look at the page count of “Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation” may be enough to make one run for the hills. This is less “tell me about a book I never heard about” and more “paint me a detailed picture of 19th century England and do it in a way I never thought possible”.
It’s very important to keep this in mind and I will note again: do not go into this book hoping for it to just be about the book in question. This is a wildly impressive survey of 19th century (mostly British) culture from too many angles to list. The anchor just happens to be a book that swept society like a bolt out of the blue and just like that bolt, seemed to vanish the moment Darwin published his most well known work.
There’s a human element too, of course. This isn’t only a book about a book and how it was received, but about its very unusual author too. Robert Chambers, we learn was “born with six fingers and toes” (page 149, eBook) and perhaps due to those extra digits, a preternatural level of curiosity about the world around him. Make no mistake though: he was no Darwin. He did not travel around the world on a ship with a funny name to make observations in far off locales; Chambers basically wrote his anonymous magnum opus while “[taking] up golfing and participat[ing] in the local literary culture” (page 124) in a most bucolic English town by the sea. But perhaps the idyll background was what was needed to drive his intellect to put pen to paper?
A big takeaway I got at least is how similar Robert Chambers is to none other than Giordano Bruno, described by Michael White in “The Pope and the Heretic” as an “ideas man” who “had a profound effect upon many of those of his own and later generations who were interested in experiment.” (page 211, The Pope and the Heretic eBook). Chambers may not have gotten himself dirty, but he had the pen of a wordsmith and the keen ability to take all the various threads circulating in the richness of post-Enlightenment Edinburgh and merge them all together in a book that reads as if you were on the receiving end of a discussion by a gentle and patient science teacher from another era. Case in point is the first paragraph from Vestiges which James A. Secord ingeniously breaks down to explain Chambers’s genius with words:
“Victorian Sensation” is a rarity upon rarities. Yes, books about reception histories of books are a dime a dozen, but how many take that concept and go absolutely all out with it? If someone asked me to describe this book by giving it a more modern day comparison, I would say “imagine if there was a 700 page book about the Japanese anime movie Akira (1988) but the book only slightly covered what the movie itself was about and rather spent 670 pages examining how seemingly every facet of Japanese society (and abroad because why not?) responded to the movie.” This may sound like a bore and in less skilled hands, it--both “Victorian Sensation” and my fake Akira book—could very well have been one...but it’s not! This book almost has no business being as entertaining as it is. Somehow it works and because of that, it’s a must-read.
“My strategy will be to follow a single work in all its uses and manifestations—in conversation, solitude, authorship, learned debate, religious controversy, civic politics, and the making of knowledge.”
Secord, James A.. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (p. 23). The University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.
Not only a biography, not only a history book, not only a critique, but a tome almost double the length of the work of the hour, 1844’s “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation”, that covers its reception history and it being perhaps the crux of many a mid-19th century debate from any and all sides. No stone left unturned and done in a way that really rewards the curiosity reader as it’s all the more important to never forget why we know what we know. Thus, for those who really just want to know about the book itself, one look at the page count of “Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation” may be enough to make one run for the hills. This is less “tell me about a book I never heard about” and more “paint me a detailed picture of 19th century England and do it in a way I never thought possible”.
It’s very important to keep this in mind and I will note again: do not go into this book hoping for it to just be about the book in question. This is a wildly impressive survey of 19th century (mostly British) culture from too many angles to list. The anchor just happens to be a book that swept society like a bolt out of the blue and just like that bolt, seemed to vanish the moment Darwin published his most well known work.
There’s a human element too, of course. This isn’t only a book about a book and how it was received, but about its very unusual author too. Robert Chambers, we learn was “born with six fingers and toes” (page 149, eBook) and perhaps due to those extra digits, a preternatural level of curiosity about the world around him. Make no mistake though: he was no Darwin. He did not travel around the world on a ship with a funny name to make observations in far off locales; Chambers basically wrote his anonymous magnum opus while “[taking] up golfing and participat[ing] in the local literary culture” (page 124) in a most bucolic English town by the sea. But perhaps the idyll background was what was needed to drive his intellect to put pen to paper?
A big takeaway I got at least is how similar Robert Chambers is to none other than Giordano Bruno, described by Michael White in “The Pope and the Heretic” as an “ideas man” who “had a profound effect upon many of those of his own and later generations who were interested in experiment.” (page 211, The Pope and the Heretic eBook). Chambers may not have gotten himself dirty, but he had the pen of a wordsmith and the keen ability to take all the various threads circulating in the richness of post-Enlightenment Edinburgh and merge them all together in a book that reads as if you were on the receiving end of a discussion by a gentle and patient science teacher from another era. Case in point is the first paragraph from Vestiges which James A. Secord ingeniously breaks down to explain Chambers’s genius with words:
“It is familiar knowledge that the earth which we inhabit is a globe of somewhat less than 8000 miles in diameter, being one of a series of eleven which revolve at different distances around the sun, and some of which have satellites in like manner revolving around them. The sun, planets, and satellites, with the less intelligible orbs termed comets, are comprehensively called the solar system, and if we take as the uttermost bounds of this system the orbit of Uranus (though the comets actually have a wider range), we shall find that it occupies a portion of space not less than three thousand six hundred millions of miles in extent. The mind fails to form an exact notion of a portion of space so immense; but some faint idea of it may be obtained from the fact, that, if the swiftest race-horse ever known had begun to traverse it, at full speed, at the time of the birth of Moses, he would only as yet have accomplished half his journey.” (page 152 quoting first paragraph of Vestiges)
“Victorian Sensation” is a rarity upon rarities. Yes, books about reception histories of books are a dime a dozen, but how many take that concept and go absolutely all out with it? If someone asked me to describe this book by giving it a more modern day comparison, I would say “imagine if there was a 700 page book about the Japanese anime movie Akira (1988) but the book only slightly covered what the movie itself was about and rather spent 670 pages examining how seemingly every facet of Japanese society (and abroad because why not?) responded to the movie.” This may sound like a bore and in less skilled hands, it--both “Victorian Sensation” and my fake Akira book—could very well have been one...but it’s not! This book almost has no business being as entertaining as it is. Somehow it works and because of that, it’s a must-read.
June 28, 2023
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.
January 26, 2015
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
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
March 26, 2016
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.
April 28, 2015
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.
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.
January 20, 2022
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.
May 29, 2010
Despite the title, it's not erotica. It's about a book that hit the stores 20 years before Darwin. Very, very through history.
June 27, 2011
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
November 19, 2013
Brilliant, masterful, and amazing.
Read
January 17, 2017576.80941 S4459 2000
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews