Journey Underground

"In accordance with your royal order, we hereby send the animal, which sometime since came down to us from the firmament; which animal calls itself man.

We have, with sedulous care and patient industry, taught this singular creature in our school, and after a very severe examination, pronounce it to be very quick in its perceptions and very docile in its manners.

Nevertheless, from its obtuse and miserable judgement — which we believe arises from its too hasty inferences — its ridiculous scepticism on unquestionable points, and its no less ridiculous credulity on doubtful ones, we may scarcely number it among sensible beings."

'Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum' (original 1741 title)
or 'Niels Klims Forundelige Reise'
or 'Niels Klim's journey under the ground being a narrative of his wonderful descent to the subterranean lands; together with an account of the sensible animals and trees inhabiting the planet Nazar and the Firmament'.
[by Norwegian-Danish author, Ludvig Holberg]

Niels Klim's descent to the planet Nazar [1845 edition]

[alternative version 1789]

[1834 edition]

A new fashion introduced into Martinia [1834 edition]
[alternative version 1845]

[1834 edition]
[alternative version 1789]

[1834 edition]
[alternative version 1789]

Presentation of Niels Klim at the Court of Potu [1834 edition]
[alternative version 1845]

A citizen of Potu led in triumph [1834]
[alternative version 1845]

A criminal led by three watchmen [1845]
[alternative version 1789]

[1834 edition]

En Inbyggare i Potu [1767 edition]

En inbyggare i Musikanterland [1767 edition]

Et måltid i Mezendora [1767 edition]

Louis Holberg's 1741 science fiction / fantasy / utopian / satirical novel derides his contemporary 18th century society while drawing inspiration from Thomas More's Utopia and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

"His only novel, it describes a utopian society from an outsider's point of view, and often pokes fun at diverse cultural and social topics such as morality, science, sexual equality, religion, governments, and philosophy."

It was considered too radical for Nordic culture, so the first edition was published in Latin in Germany where it circulated to a much wider audience and its popularity ensured it was quickly translated into a number of languages.

"One of the most influential 18th century works of proto-SF satire, it describes the fantastic voyage of Niels Klim through a hole in a mountain (the name Holberg can be translated as "hollow mountain") into a hollow earth on the model suggested by Edmond Halley, in which a minute internal sun is circled by the planet Nazar.

Here Klim finds himself in the land of Potu [ie 'Utop'], whose inhabitants show a societal pattern diametrically opposed to that of the contemporary stereotype: women are the dominant sex and males perform only menial tasks."

From the 1845 introduction (in English):

"There are many persons of both sexes in my country, who believe in fairies and supernatural beings, and who are ready to swear, that they have been conveyed by spirits to hills and mountain caves.

This superstition is ridiculed in Klim, the hero of the tale. He is supposed to be transported to the world under ground, where he meets with some surprising adventures. Many strange creatures inhabit this new world; trees, for instance, are introduced, endowed with speech, and musical instruments discuss questions of philosophy and finance.

Amongst the characters, those geniuses, who perceive everything at a glance, but penetrate nothing, are conspicuous. People of quick perception, whom we use to admire, are despised by the Potuans, who look upon them as idle loungers, that, though always moving, make no progress. Prudent men, on the contrary, who measure their own strength, and advance cautiously, are greatly esteemed by that nation, though with us they pass for fools or cowards.

The Potuans and Martinians are examples of both these extremes. By the former Klim was considered a blockhead, on account of the quickness of his perceptions; by the latter he was equally despised for the slowness of his apprehension. To Klim, who measures virtues and vices by the ordinary standard, everything is a paradox; but what he at first condemns, he admires and extols after deliberation; so that the object of the whole work is to correct popular errors, and to distinguish the semblance of virtue and vice from the reality. Its subordinate design is to expose the monstrous fictions, which some authors obtrude upon us in their descriptions of remote countries."

• The majority of images above are kindly made available through Norway's Bergen Public Library Flickr set {thanks Håvard!} [Homepage of Bergen Offentlige Bibliotek].
• 'Niels Klim's journey under the ground by baron Ludvig Holberg' [1845 edition] is available in full in English at Project Gutenberg.
• HOLBERG, LUDVIG from the (new) beta version of the Encylopedia of Science Fiction [via Metafilter]
• Wikipedia: Niels Klim's Underground Travels and Ludvig Holberg (bio).
• The (contentious) History of Science Fiction / Early History of Science Fiction.
• Via the always excellent Princeton Graphic Arts blog.
• Previously (highly recommended): Flight to Antipodes, featuring the marvellously eccentric proto-SF work by Nicolas-Edmé Restif de la Bretonne (1781).
• 'The Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground' by Ludvig Holberg on Amazon.
• UPDATE: Go see: Stories of a Hollow Earth at the Public Domain Review : "Peter Fitting, author of Subterranean Worlds: A Critical Anthology, explores Holberg’s book in the wider context of the hollow earth theory."
  

Australian Lepidoptera

Images from 'Australian Lepidoptera and their Transformations' by AW Scott, with illustrations by his daughters, Harriet and Helena (2nd half of 19th century).

Antheraea eucalypti

Chelepteryx collesi
[b&w version]

Chelepteryx exploitus + Eulophocame amaena

Antheraea simplex

Various Agarista species

Coequosa triangularis

Polycyma, Polyommatus + Lycaena species

Spanocala, Auocala + Catocala species

Rhizopsyche swainsoni
[b&w version]

"In 1846, Harriet and Helena [Scott], then aged 16 and 14, moved from Sydney to the isolated Ash Island in the Hunter River estuary* [near Newscastle, NSW] with their mother, Harriet Calcott, and father, entomologist and entrepreneur Alexander Walker Scott.

There, surrounded by unspoilt native vegetation and under the inspiring tutelage of their artistic father, their shared fascination with the natural world grew. For almost 20 years, the sisters lived and worked on the island, faithfully recording its flora and fauna, especially the butterflies and moths. [..] These skills as amateur naturalists were rare amongst women of this time, as women were never formally trained and few had the situation in life or opportunities of [the Scott sister].

Harriet and Helena worked on the paintings for 'Australian Lepidoptera and their Transformations' between 1846 and 1851. They continued to revise them until around 1862, just before the first volume was published. [..] Their skill lay in the ability to combine accurate detail with visual appeal. Illustrations were life-sized and completed with the aid of microscopes to capture colour, texture and details of tiny body parts. The life cycle and host plants of each species were depicted and many paintings also included background landscapes. [..]

In 1851, the unpublished Lepidoptera book was reviewed by botanist W Swainson in the Sydney Morning Herald:

‘These drawings are equal to any I have ever seen by modern artists … Whether we look at the exquisite and elaborate finishing, the correct drawing, or the astonishing exactitude of the colours, often most brilliant … there is not poetic exaggeration in saying: “the force of painting can no further go”.’

The review was over a decade too early as the book did not make it to print until 1864. Only 500 copies of the first volume of the Lepidoptera were published. Each copy was individually hand coloured by specialist colourists – which was expensive and time consuming. Only the wealthy or those with wealthy patrons could afford such books. A second volume co-edited by Helena was published by the Australian Museum from 1890 to 1898. AW Scott never saw this as he died in 1883."
[This commentary was excerpted from the Australian Museum website, linked below]

'Australian Lepidoptera and their Transformations' (1864-1898) and the original watercolour paintings and notebooks of Harriet and Helena Scott and associated material are the subject of a current exhibition (until the end of November 2011) at the Australian Museum in Sydney. They have a fairly extensive series of images and essays (and more!) available online:
Beauty from Nature: art of the Scott Sisters.

All the images above are courtesy of the University of Newcastle Flickr set.

I was first alerted to this series and exhibition via the wonderful University of Newcastle Cultural Collections Blog [and here]. I've been a fan of their site for the last couple of years.

The Australian Museum's copies of the two volumes of 'Australian Lepidoptera and their Transformations' have been digitised and uploaded recently to the newly minted Australian affiliate of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Or they can be accessed from the main BHL site.

The cover image from Volume 2 (BHL), with its botanical typography, is seen below. It may be a matter of taste, but there is variation in quality between the Flickr images, the BHL books and the images seen on the Australian Museum site; I thought the Flickr images were generally of superior quality. I'll have to get along to the exhibition in person in the next couple of weeks to get the best view (hopefully!) of the work.

Previously: science; fauna; Australia.

The Temple of Muses

Mythological Figures and Fables

The Chaos or the Origin of the World

Transformation of Cyguns into a Swan and Phaeton's Sisters into poplar trees

Bellerophon fights the Chimaera

Achelous in the shape of a Bull is vanquished by Hercules

Amphion builds the walls of Thebes by the Music of his Lyre

Arion preserved by a Dolphin

Atlas supports the Heavens on his shoulders

The Fall of Icarus

Glaucus changed into a Sea-God

The Moon and Endymion

The Dioscuri or Castor and Pollux the Guardians of Mariners

Ulysses and his companions avoid the charms of the Sirens

Hercules' Combat with the Hydra

Sisyphus's stone

Ixion's wheel

Hell

Bernard Picart (or Picard) (1673-1733) was a French book illustrator and one of the outstanding engravers from the first decades of the 18th century. His most famous work - see: Designer Religion - was an enormous compendium of the world's religions.

In 'Neueröffneter Musen-Tempel', a collection of mythological fables and stories (most notably from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses') is presented, accompanied by sixty copperplate engravings by Picart. The illustrations are superior in quality, even as they appeared in 1733 in the fading light of the Baroque tradition. The fabulous ornate border patterns lend the compositions something of a formal quality like framed paintings; indeed, Picart drew inspiration for a number of his engravings from mid-17th century works by the Rubens student, Abraham van Diepenbeeck. But the majority of the designs are by Picart himself.

Motives listed for Picart's illustration include: Alcyone, Alpheus, Andromeda, Apollo, Arethusa, Argonauts, Argus, Aristaeus, Artemis, Calais, Cassandra, Castor, Ceyx, Cycnus, Deucalion, Dioscuri, Echo, Enceladus, Endymion, Eos, Eurynome, Giants, Glaucus, Harpies, Heliades, Hera, Hermaphroditus, Hermes, House of Hypnos, Io, Iphis, Leander, Leucothoe, Lycaon, Memnon, Niobe, Niobids, Oeneus, Palladium, Pan, Perseus, Phaethon, Phineus, Polydeuces, Proteus, Pygmalion, Pyrrha, River Gods, Salmacis, Selene, Semele, Syrinx, Tantalus, The Flood, Tithonus, Trojan War, Troy, Underworld, Zetes, Zeus [source]

'The Temple of Muses' was published in France and Germany simultaneously in 1733 and includes captions in English, French, German and Dutch below each illustration. The images above are from a 1754 edition published in Amsterdam.

• 'Neueröffneter Musen-Tempel: Welcher das Allermerkwürdigste' (or, approximately/expanded: 'The Temple of the Muses contains mythological tales and fables of ancient authors, especially from Ovid's Metamorphoses, which are provided with comments and interpretations') was recently placed online at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg. [click anything below 'Inhalt' and then 'Vorschau' for thumbnail pages] {$12.5K!}
• Previously: Designer Religion / Artcyclopedia entry.

Crustacean Atlas

Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Herbst (1743-1807) was a German naturalist and entomologist as well as a theologian and chaplain for the Prussian army.

Herbst was best known for helping Carl Jablonsky attempt to survey all known beetles (Order Colyoptera). The effort resulted in the massive, but still incomplete 'Naturgeschichte der in-und Ausländischen Insekten' (1785-1806) (see: i, ii)

The title of present interest - 'Versuch einer Naturgeschichte der Krabben und Krebse' ([An attempt at] The Natural History of Crabs and Lobsters) - was released in instalments between about 1782 and the mid-1790s. There were three volumes of text and an atlas consisting of more than sixty hand-coloured engravings. It appears various editions were issued before 1800, some coloured, some not and some coloured later : all having an impact on the auction price today (ranging from, say, $6K to $18K).

Herbst's crab and lobster book was - as far as I can tell - the first comprehensive work on the crustaceans and definitely included descriptions and illustrations of previously unknown species. It is still regarded as a primary source in the field.

• The images in this post from 'Versuch einer Naturgeschichte der Krabben und Krebse' were sourced from Berlin's Humboldt University (thumbnail page).
• A pdf can be obtained from the Biodiversity Heritage Library of Europe.
• The series can also be accessed from Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum (different colouring/style).
• Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum has a number of other works by JFW Herbst available via their Animal Database.
• Other brief sources: one, two, three, four.
• via Scientific Illustration tumblr.

JFW Herbst titles on Amazon