Mary Somerville
Science, Illumination, and the Female Mind

A biography of the leading woman of science in Great Britain during the nineteenth century.

Kathryn A. Neeley (Author)

9780521626729, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 22 October 2001

280 pages, 1 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.42 kg

'Neeley has provided scholars with an absorbing and definitive intellectual biography of Mary Somerville, arguably the most important woman in science during the nineteenth-century … In sum, Neeley's book is a welcome addition to the growing bodies of scholarship re-interpreting the role of women in science, examining the relationship between science and literature, and exploring the importance of popular science.' Centauras

In an era when science was perceived as a male domain, Mary Somerville (1780–1872) became both the leading woman scientist of her day and an integral part of the British scientific community. She achieved this status through careful management of her gender identity and by creating rich, readable, and authoritative accounts of science that were rhetorically compelling, aesthetically satisfying, and valuable to the scientific community in the UK and abroad. This biography offers detailed analysis of the underlying patterns, themes, and rhetorical strategies of her major works and argues that Somerville employed a transcendent feminine style that retained the advantages but transcended the limitations usually associated with women's ways of knowing. The book advocates a new narrative for women's participation in science and demonstrates the many ways that gender relates to science and science functions in culture.

Author's preface
Prologue
Perceiving what others do not perceive: the 'peculiar illumination' of the female mind
1. Head among the stars, feet firm upon the earth: the problem of categorizing Mary Somerville
2. Creating a room of her own in the world of science: how Mary Fairfax became the famous Mrs Somerville
3. Science as exact calculation and elevated meditation: Mechanism of the Heavens (1931), Preliminary Dissertation (1832), and On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834)
4. The earth, the sea, the air, and their inhabitants: Physical Geography (1848) and On Molecular and Microscopic Science (1869)
5. Personal Recollections (1973): Mary Somerville on Mary Somerville
6. Memory and Mary Somerville: in the public eye and historical memory
Epilogue: science, voice, and vision.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1]