Download or read book Martin Lister and His Remarkable Daughters written by Anna Marie Roos and published by Bodleian Library. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: On 17 July 1681, the English naturalist and physician Martin Lister (1639-1712) wrote to his wife Hannah en route from York to France. The good doctor suffered from severe and chronic asthma throughout his life, and he took "the waters" on the Continent periodically to convalesce and rest away from a busy medical practice and growing family responsibilities. Lister was also a fervent Francophile, having studied medicine in Montpellier in the 1660s, and he would go on to write a bestselling travel guide to Paris telling his readers which curiosities to see, which wine to drink, and making perceptive comments about the differences between French habits and those of the English. The work was so popular that it was reprinted for the next three centuries in English and French for a cross-cultural audience. Lister left his wife at home to care for their "sweet Babes," urging her in his absence: " . . . prithee again be merry, and make much of thy self and barnes [children]." He explained to Hannah that he left "to gain my health and ease my spirits, over tired with my calling and thoughts." Hannah, left at home with the children, was apparently not so sanguine; Lister continued, "my deare I admire you can be so hard hearted as not given me a line all this time, this is my fourth Letter. And the second weeke of my journey only." He promised his wife that he would come home by August, but pleaded "doe not let a week or so break any squares with thee and me," and he promised to bring some presents from France

Download or read book Rare Wonderful written by Kate Diston and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its foundation in 1860, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History's world-renowned collections have become a key centre for scientific study and its much-loved building an important icon for visitors from around the world.The museum now holds over seven million scientific specimens including five million insects, half a million fossil specimens and half a million zoological specimens. It also holds an extensive collection of archival material relating to important naturalists such as Charles Darwin, William Smith, William Jones and James Charles Dale. This lavishly illustrated book features highlights from the collections ranging from the iconic Dodo (the only soft tissue specimen of the species in existence) and the giant tuna (brought back from Madeira on a perilous sea crossing in 1846) to crabs collected by Darwin during his voyage on the Beagle, David Livingstone's tsetse fly specimens and Mary Anning's ichthyosaur. Also featured are the first described dinosaur bones, found in a small Oxfordshire village, the Red Lady of Paviland (who was in fact a man who lived 29,000 years ago) and a meteorite from the planet Mars.Each item tells a unique story about natural history, about the history of science, about collecting, or about the museum itself. They give a unique insight into the extraordinary wealth of information and the fascinating tales that can be gleaned from these collections, both from the past and for the future.

Download or read book The Listerdale Mystery written by Agatha Christie and published by MB Cooltura. This book was released on 2023-05-13 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bankrupt upper-class family rents a wonderful mansion for a ridiculously low price. The house belongs to Lord Listerdale, who has supposedly gone on a trip but no one knows where. Rupert, the son of Mrs. San Vicente, the tenant, believes that the man is dead and that his body is hidden somewhere in the house. A series of coincidences will help the young man discover the mystery behind the former owner.

Download or read book Marie Curie and Her Daughters written by Shelley Emling and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on Marie Curie's letters, interviews with her granddaughter, Hélène Langevin-Joliot, and family photographs, the author describes the lives and accomplishments of Marie Curie (1867-1934) and her daughters Irene and Eve, starting her description in 1911.

Download or read book The Botanist s Daughter written by Kayte Nunn and published by Hachette Australia. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discovery. Desire. Deception. A wondrously imagined tale of two female botanists, separated by more than a century, in a race to discover a life-saving flower, from the author of the bestselling The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant In Victorian England, headstrong adventuress Elizabeth takes up her late father's quest for a rare, miraculous plant. She faces a perilous sea voyage, unforeseen dangers and treachery that threatens her entire family. In present-day Australia, Anna finds a mysterious metal box containing a sketchbook of dazzling watercolours, a photograph inscribed 'Spring 1886' and a small bag of seeds. It sets her on a path far from her safe, carefully ordered life, and on a journey that will force her to face her own demons. In this spellbinding botanical odyssey of discovery, desire and deception, Kayte Nunn has so exquisitely researched nineteenth-century Cornwall and Chile you can almost smell the fragrance of the flowers, the touch of the flora on your fingertips . . . 'Two incredibly likeable, headstrong heroines . . . watching them flourish is captivating. With these dynamic women at the helm, Kayte weaves a clever tale of plant treachery involving exotic and perilous encounters in Chile, plus lashings of gentle romance. Compelling storytelling' The Australian Women's Weekly 'The riveting story of two women, divided by a century in time, but united by their quest to discover a rare and dangerous flower said to have the power to heal as well as kill. Fast-moving and full of surprises, The Botanist's Daughter brings the exotic world of 19th-century Chile thrillingly to life' KATE FORSYTH Praise for The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant: 'If you enjoyed City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert, read Kayte Nunn' The Washington Post 'Nunn's US debut is an engaging, dual-period narrative tracing Esther's journey towards healing and wholeness as well as Rachel's attempts to move beyond her wanderlust and unwillingness to commit to a home, job or relationship. The ending highlights the enduring power of love and forgiveness' Booklist Magazine 'Vivid descriptions highlight intertwining plot lines that seamlessly build to a satisfying climax. For fans of authors such as Lauren Willig and Kate Morton' Library Journal **Contains BONUS extract from Kayte's newest spellbinding novel, THE SILK HOUSE**

Download or read book The Tradescants Orchard written by Barrie Edward Juniper and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early seventeenth century there was eager interest, among the leisured classes, in fruits from the Mediterranean and beyond, not least for the kitchen gardens and orchards of England's grand houses. The volume of charming, vibrant, almost primitif watercolour paintings of orchard fruits on the branch, popularly known as 'Tradescants' Orchard', is a precious and fragile relic of this era of broadening horticultural horizons.This manuscript, traditionally associated with the renowned plantsmen, the John Tradescants, was among the eclectic collections of Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), which came to form the basis of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Then, in 1860 it was transferred to the Bodleian Library. It has been quietly recognized as a mysterious treasure, yet the paintings raise many unanswered questions. Who painted them, and for whom? What was their purpose? Only one apple is represented - were there once others, now missing? Whose handwriting appears in the manuscript? Why did the artist paint wildlife such as birds, frogs and butterflies on many of the folios?All sixty-six of the original illustrations are reproduced here in facsimile for the first time, following a general introduction which maps out the mystery of why and how these beguiling watercolours came to be commissioned and made.

Download or read book Why North is Up written by Mick Ashworth and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people have a love of maps. But what lies behind the process of map-making? How have cartographers through the centuries developed their craft and established a language of maps which helps them to better represent our world and help users to understand it? This book tells the story of how widely accepted mapping conventions originated and evolved--from map orientation, projections, typography, and scale, to the use of color, symbols, ways of representing relief, and the treatment of boundaries and place names. It charts the fascinating story of how conventions have changed in response to new technologies and ever-changing mapping requirements, how symbols can be a matter of life or death, why universal acceptance of conventions can be difficult to achieve, and how new mapping conventions are developing to meet the needs of modern cartography. Why North is Up offers an accessible and enlightening guide to the sometimes hidden techniques of map-making through the centuries.

Download or read book Web of Nature Martin Lister 1639 1712 the First Arachnologist written by Anna Marie Roos and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-07-12 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first full-length biography of Dr. Martin Lister (1639-1712), vice-president of the Royal Society, Royal Physician, and the first arachnologist and conchologist, provides an unprecedented picture of a seventeenth-century virtuoso. Lister is recognized for his discovery of ballooning spiders and as the father of conchology, but it is less well known that he invented the histogram, provided Newton with alloys, and donated the first significant natural history collections to the Ashmolean Museum. Just as Lister was the first to make a systematic study of spiders and their webs, this biography is the first to analyze the significant webs of knowledge, patronage, and familial and gender relationships that governed his life as a scientist and physician.

Download or read book The Pope s Daughter written by Dario Fo and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lucrezia Borgia is one of the most vilified women in modern history. The daughter of a notorious pope, she was twice betrothed before the age of eleven and thrice married—one husband was forced to declare himself impotent and thereby unfit and another was murdered by Lucrezia’s own brother, Cesar Borgia. She is cast in the role of murderess, temptress, incestuous lover, loose woman, femme fatale par excellence. But there are two sides to every story. Lucrezia Borgia is the only woman in history to have serve as the head of the Catholic Church. She successfully administered several of Renaissance Italy’s most thriving cities, founded one of the world’s first credit unions, and was a generous patron of the arts. She was mother to a prince and to a cardinal. She was a devoted wife to the Prince of Ferrara, and the lover of the poet Pietro Bembo. She was a child of the renaissance and, in many ways, the world’s first modern woman. In this richly imagined novel, Nobel laureate Dario Fo reveals Lucrezia’s humanity, her passion for life, her compassion for others, and her skill at navigating around her family’s evildoings. The Borgias are unrivalled for the range and magnitude of their political machinations and opportunism. Fo’s brilliance rests in his rendering their story as a shocking mirror image of the uses and abuses of power in our own time. Lucrezia herself becomes a model for how to survive and rise above those abuses. Part Wolf Hall, part House of Cards, The Pope's Daugther will appeal to readers of historical fiction and of contemporary fiction alike and will delight anyone fascinated by Renaissance Italy.

Download or read book A Conspiracy of Ravens written by Samuel Fanous and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Conspiracy of Ravens presents readers with a compendium of collective bird nouns from the distant and not-so-distant past. This book collects more than one hundred of the best and most imaginative expressions and illustrates them with charming woodcuts by the eighteenth-century artist and naturalist Thomas Bewick.

Download or read book A Barrel of Monkeys written by Samuel Fanous and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We're all familiar with 'a flock of sheep' but what are the collective nouns for racehorses, pigs, zebras or giraffes? Drawing on a range of sources, from fifteenth-century hunting terms to more recent inventions that have now entered the language, this book collects over 100 examples of the most interesting collective nouns for animals, each illustrated with charming woodcuts by the renowned naturalist engraver of the eighteenth century, Thomas Bewick.Some describe a key characteristic of the animal in question: 'a shrewdness of apes', 'a busyness of ferrets'. Others are delightfully humorous: 'a piddle of puppies', 'a crash of rhinoceroses'.Featuring pets, farmyard animals, big cats and wild beasts, this beautifully presented book is the perfect gift for animal lovers and all those with an interest in this quirky linguistic tradition.

Download or read book Specimens of Hair written by Robert McCracken Peck and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strangely beautiful, utterly unique, "Specimens of Hair" presents the obsessive work of a 19th-century amateur naturalist who collected hundreds upon hundreds of specimens of hair--animal and human, Including thirteen of the first fourteen U.S. presidents--in his quest to understand the mysteries of the natural world.

Download or read book The Emperor of All Maladies written by Siddhartha Mukherjee and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-08-09 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is “an extraordinary achievement” (The New Yorker)—a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.

Download or read book Oxford Botanic Garden Arboretum written by Stephen A. Harris and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest surviving botanic garden in Britain and has occupied its site in central Oxford since 1621. Conceived as a place to grow medicinal plants, born in the turmoil of civil war and nurtured during the restoration of the monarchy, the garden has, unsurprisingly, a curious past.By tracing the work and priorities of each of the garden's keepers, this book explores its importance as one of the world's oldest scientific plant collections. It tells the story of the planting of the garden by its first keeper, Jacob Bobart, and his son, together with how they changed the garden to suit their own needs. The story develops during the eighteenth century as the garden grew exotic plants under glass and acquired a fine succulent collection but then experienced a downturn under the stewardship of the eccentric Professor Humphrey Sibthorp (famous for giving just one lecture in thirty-seven years). Finally, the narrative throws light on the partnership of gardener William Baxter and academic Charles Daubeny in the early nineteenth century, which gave the garden its glasshouses and ponds and contributed to its survival to the present day. This generously illustrated book is the first history of the garden and arboretum for more than a century and provides an essential introduction to one of Oxford's much-loved haunts.

Download or read book The Expected One written by Kathleen McGowan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-07-03 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biblical dreams and visions plague American Maureen Paschal. When she travels to France, she finds what has eluded centuries of treasure hunters--the original Magdalene scrolls that detail her love affair with Jesus, their marriage, and the crucifixion.

Download or read book History of Berlin Connecticut written by Catharine Melinda North and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Volcanoes written by David M. Pyle and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, volcanic eruptions have captured our imaginations. Whether as signposts to an underworld, beacons to ancient mariners, or as an extraordinary manifestation of the natural world, volcanoes have intrigued many people, who have left records of their encounters in letters, reports and diaries and through sketches and illustrations. This book tells the stories of volcanic eruptions around the world, using original illustrations and first-hand accounts to explore how our understanding of volcanoes has evolved through time. Written accounts include Pliny's description of the 79 CE eruption of Vesuvius, stories recounted by seventeenth-century sea-farers, and reports of expeditions made by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century natural historians, including Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin. Illustrations range from fragments of scrolls, buried in the great eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii, to Athanasius Kircher's extraordinarily detailed sketches, made in the seventeenth century, to the spectacular London sunsets caused by Krakatoa's eruption in 1883. They also include the first photograph of a volcanic eruption and twenty-first-century imaging of Santorini.These varied and compelling accounts enrich our perspective on current studies of volcanoes and challenge us to think about how we might use our contemporary understanding of volcanology to prepare for the next big eruption.