Ralph O’Connor, The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802–1856

The 19th century certainly knew how to appeal to the sensibilities of the British public, marketing sensation and making the audience’s hair stand on end and their flesh creep. At the time when geology and paleontology emerged as new scientific disciplines, scientists particularly took pains to popularise their theories and finds through dramatic mises-en-scènes. Though 19th-century geologists contributed to the popularisation of their discipline through public platforms (whether in the shape..