Reading the Book of Nature

Jonathan R. Topham is professor of history of science at the University of Leeds, UK. He is the coauthor and coeditor of several books, most recently Science Periodicals in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Constructing Scientific Communities, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

• Note for TeachersIntroduction: Reading the Book of NaturePrelude: Trouble over BridgewaterPart 1 Writing1 Becoming a Bridgewater Author2 Writing God into NaturePart 2 Publishing3 Distributing Design4 Science SerializedPart 3 Reading5 Science and the Practice of Religion6 Preachers and Protagonists7 Being a Christian “Man of Science”8 Religion and the Practice of ScienceConclusion: “The Fashionable Reign of the Bridgewater Treatises”AcknowledgmentsAppendix A Note on Currency and the Value of MoneyAppendix B British Editions of the Bridgewater TreatisesAppendix C British Reviews of the Bridgewater Treatises, 1833–38Works CitedIndex

“Topham approaches his subject through the interdisciplinary prism of book history, offering us a rich—and unprecedented—cultural history of the authorship, publication, and readers of the Bridgewater Treatises. . . . By employing a book history approach, Topham has succeeded in providing fresh insights into the role of print culture in mediating the relationship between religion and science on the eve of the Victorian era. Reading the Book of Nature will become a standard reference work for those interested in understanding the transformations in writing, publishing, and reading in nineteenth-century science.”