Title:
The reason for the darkness of the night : Edgar Allan Poe and the forging of American science / John Tresch.
ISBN:
9780374247850
Personal Author:
Edition:
First edition.
Publication Information:
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.
©2021
Physical Description:
434 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Contents:
Part I: From Allan to Poe -- The Young Astronomer -- In Jefferson's Experiment -- Exile, Artificer, Cadet -- Part II: Setting Sail -- A Baltimore Apprenticeship -- Richmond: The Palpable Obscure -- Delirious Design -- Part III: Philadelphia -- The Athens of America -- Methods Grotesque and Arabesque -- Dizzy Heights -- The Tide Turns -- The March of Science and Quacks -- Part IV: New York City -- The Market for Novelty -- A Man of Wonders -- The Imp of the Perverse -- Part V: To the Plutonian Shore -- A Spectacle for Angels -- The Plots of God -- Falling Star -- Conclusion: From a Lighthouse.
Summary:
"A biography of Edgar Allan Poe with an emphasis on his engagement with the scientists and scientific discoveries of his era"-- Provided by publisher.
Tresch reveals Poe's obsession with science and lifelong ambition to advance and question human knowledge. Even as he composed dazzling works of fiction, he remained an avid and often combative commentator on new discoveries, publishing and hustling in literary scenes that also hosted the era's most prominent scientists, semi-scientists, and pseudo-intellectual rogues. In showing that Poe lived, thought, and suffered surrounded by science, Tresch shows that many of his most renowned and imaginative works can best be understood in its company. -- adapted from jacket
Genre:
OCLC Number:
on1182584350
Availability:
Apple Valley - Galaxie~1
South St. Paul - Kaposia~1
Eagan - Wescott~1
