Volume 33, Number 17 · November 6, 1986
Now, Voyager
By Charles Rosen
Voyage into Substance: Art, Science, Nature, and the Illustrated Travel Account, 1760–1840
by Barbara Maria Stafford
MIT Press, 645 pp., $39.95
Voyage into Substance is a study of illustrated scientific travel accounts from 1760 to 1840. It is itself beautifully illustrated; the pictures are always intriguing and a delight. It has been magnificently printed with grandiose margins by the MIT Press abetted by grants from the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association of America, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The money has been well spent on the illustrations, but the text is another matter: often inaccurate, consistently obscure and unconvincing, it unravels at once like a cat's cradle the moment one examines it closely.
Review, 7106 words
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