Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book situates Erasmus Darwin's three major poems The Loves of the Plants, The Economy of Vegetation and The Temple of Nature within a number of contexts. The multitasking doctor was Erasmus Darwin. He was a founder-member of the Birmingham Lunar Society which nurtured the seeds of the Industrial Revolution, a prolific inventor and one of the country's most celebrated physicians. The most academically arranged of these is Maureen McNeil's trenchant science-historical critique, Under the Banner of Science: Erasmus Darwin and his Age. Those interested in Erasmus Darwin as a Romantic influence have tended to be more interested in the politics, botany or physio-psychology than in the chemistry and astronomy. A more socially contextualized approach is marked by Jenny Uglows The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future, which deftly interweaves Darwin's life with those of the other future-makers of Birmingham-based Lunar Society.