ABSTRACT
Beddoes was a physician, a chemist, a mineralogist and geologist, and a bibliophile. He read Latin like many if not most eighteenth-century physicians but, unlike most, read several living European languages. He was an eclectic translator and reviewer of English, Latin, and foreign books, especially German ones that he introduced to English readers. He advised the Edinburgh-born John Murray (1737-1793), founder of the eponymous publishing house, about scientific publications, and for some years Murray was his principal publisher. Beddoes then moved to the radical Unitarian publisher Joseph Johnson, who published not only his books, but also his political and moralizing tracts and broadsheets. Beddoes was at pains to acquire and study an extraordinary range of medical, scientific, philosophical, and literary works, especially those of German authors. Humphry Davy wrote of Beddoes that “[h]e had great talent & much reading”;1 “much” is an understatement. His networks included physicians, chemists, industrialists, politicians, and political radicals.
