Microscopic recreations
Rare Books and The Earth is Us
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
Here is something that might have happened I and II
2025
Collages and narrative, With a wingspan of a couple of books, a couple of centuries, created for The Earth is Us collaborative webzine for Earth Day 2025 organised by Jean McEwan
Tuesday 22nd April, 2025
“Curious reader, before I proceed to lay my observations before you, I must most humbly request, that you will not be displeased, if in all this work I have only made use of my own observations; as a solid and immoveable foundation to build upon, and that from them I have deduced certain conclusions, solid theorems, and classes digested in due order. For as long as neither nature herfelf exhibits any thing in opposition to these theorems, nor other writers produce experiments to contradict them; we may rest assured of the truth of what I have delivered; but then we must not wander beyond the limits of such observations, nor by straining them too much, make them extend to things not as yet sufficiently discovered.”
As something new for next year brews, into the stupendous world of insects, of late, we have delved, upon repeat. With enormous thanks to Susan Millard, Curator of Rare Books, at The University of Melbourne, for shepherding us through the treasure within the Baillieu library, and setting our minds a-spin, and hearts suitably a-flutter. Beholden to luminous wings, encasements, and furred antennae, we cannot wait to interpret, incorporate, reference, and play with but a little of what we have seen as our entomological conversation continues.
Pictured here, amongst many others, you will find Jan Swammerdam’s (1637–1680) The Book of Nature; or, The History of Insects reduced to distinct classes, confirmed by particular instances, displayed in the anatomical analysis of many species, and illustrated with copper-plates; John Ellor Taylor’s (1837–1895) Half-hours at the Seaside; or Recreations with Marine Objects (an ingenious and endearing series and idea to put into practice in the day-to-day); A World of Wonders Revealed by the Microscope: a book for young students with coloured illustrations by the Hon. Mrs. Ward (1827–1869); Edward Donovan’s (1768–1837) An Epitome of the Insects of Asia; and Elizabeth Blackwell’s (1707–1758) handsome and monumental two-volume wonderment, A Curious Herbal: containing five hundred cuts, of the most useful plants, which are now used in the practice of physick engraved on folio copper plates, after drawings taken from the life, issued in weekly parts between 1737 and 1739.
Scrolling further down you’ll find Illustrations of exotic entomology: containing upwards of six hundred and fifty figures and descriptions of foreign insects, interspersed with remarks and reflections on their nature and properties from an eighteenth century entomologist, Dru Drury (1725–1804), to be in suitable awe (that colour!); William Houghton’s (1828–1895) Sketches of British insects: a handbook for beginners in the study of entomology; James Duncan’s (1804–1861) volume II Beetles from the Entomology shelves; and the wee enchantment, The natural history of foreign butterflies, illustrated by thirty-three coloured plates, and each one a diminutive winner.
“If insects are Planet Earth’s diversity success story (and they are), then beetles are their flag-bearers. They number, at the last count, about 400,000 species. That’s 40 per cent of insects, and 25 percent of all animals. And there’s a pile more in the in-tray, awaiting description.”
Since spending time in the collections of the Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, and the State Library Victoria (more on which, to follow) looking at luminous entomological studies from near and far, and behatted snails in the marginalia of medieval manuscripts, it came as no surprise that our The Earth is Us contribution of two collages, Here’s something that might have happened I and II, and accompanying narrative, With a wingspan of a couple of books, a couple of centuries, should spring forth sporting a pair of wings of its own.
The Earth is Us is a collaborative webzine for Earth Day coming up on Tuesday 22nd of April 2025 and organised by Jean McEwan.
With a wingspan of a couple of books, a couple of centuries
If I closed my eyes, I imagined the collection, stacked side by side, grew into each other, whilst closed, like tree roots and mycelium pathways, like arboreal canopies for wildlife and the passing of knowledge-ways. Through the pages, through the covers, through the archival casings, they grew together, shelf by shelf, row by row, the entomology section of rare books in the library. Perhaps they spanned out into nearby sections, early paleontological works in English, French, and German, and into the history of architecture, and interior design plates. Growing over man-made forms, and altering their scale in the process as they absorb periodical titles. A charm of butterflies in a dining room, a spring of insects in an entrance way, they grew over and greened all that was before them, when no-one was looking. Here is something that might have happened, skeetering about the margins.
From Water Bears to Polyzoa, such “marvels of pond life!” Half hours in the tiny world: wonders of insect life (Charles Frederick Holder, 1851–1915)! With numerous illustrations. Resplendent insects, yes, please.
Image credit: Detail from a first edition of Edward Donovan’s An Epitome of the Natural History of the Insects of New Holland, New Zealand, New Guinea, Otaheite and Other Islands in the Indian, Southern and Pacific Oceans (the Dumbarton Oaks copy, as listed on Sotherby’s). “Donovan, intending this to be the first of series, produced in this work the first truly systematic account of Australian insects, ‘there is, perhaps, no extent of country in the world that can boast of a more copious or diversified assemblage of interesting objects in every department of natural history than New Holland... it burst upon our view at the first glance like a new creation’ (from his introduction).”
