Synopsis
During the early modern period, western Europe was transormed by the proliferation of new worlds - geographic worlds found in the voyages of discovery and conceptual and celestial worlds opened by natural philosophy or science. The response to incredible overseas encounters and to the profound technological, religious, economic and intellectual changes occurring in Europe was one of nearly overwhelming wonder, expressed in a rich variety of texts. In the need to manage this wonder, to harness this imaginative overabundance, the author of this text finds both the sensational beauty of early scientific works and the beginnings of divergence of the sciences - particularly geography, astronomy and anthropology - from the writing of fiction. The volume analyzes a cross-section of texts in which worlds were made and unmade; the texts include cosmographies, colonial reports, works of natural philosophy and natural history, fantastic voyages, exotic fictions and confessions. Among the authors Mary Baine Campbell discusses are Andre Thevet, Thomas Hariot, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Margaret Cavendish and Aphra Behn.
Campbell's emphasis is on developments in England and France, but she considers works in languages other than English or French which were well known in the polyglot book culture of the time. Including over 30 illustrations, the text seeks to enhance understanding of the culture of early modern Europe, the history of science and the development of literary forms, including the novel and ethnography.
