Just finished this fantastic study of “Romantic Science.” Coleridge, Mary Shelley, Sir Joseph Banks, the Herschels, Mungo Park, Humphrey Davey, are all presented with contexts intact. Not only is this book informative, but it’s delightfully written–a bit like eating ice cream with the eyes. I also learned something new: the great Balloon Craze of the late 18th century. I’ll definitely seek out Humphrey Davey’s literary works–primarily the poetry– and futuristic speculations.

Truly a “cabinet of wonders” of a book. Holmes has also written a two volume study of Coleridge, the first volume of which is one of the best biographies that I have ever read.

He chipped away at wood, stone, brick.
Named the things he desired
with hieroglyphics, Greek,
and graffiti.

The clay baked for hours
until the letters showed their lips,
labial, ravaged.
He etched, used scrimshaw,
soapstone.

Knew whatever could molt
would settle
between cracks in the rocks
where he knelt, muscled,
a piece of chalk in his fist.

The sun rose behind him.
His centaur bled, red pooled
around the cloven hooves.
No longer monstrous,
no more half-immortal.

Creature with a horse’s slender legs,
a belly filled with colic.
Beast felled by star thistle.
But then, he’d already written
of a rat-toothed wind that can set a dollar bill
soaring
above the ice.