The 2002 Pfizer Prize for the best book in the History of Science is awarded to James A. Secord for his innovative and absorbing work, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation". Like the Victorians who embraced or attacked it, gossiped and gasped about it, Secord takes seriously a work that historians have long regardedÐor ignoredÐas a light-weight precursor of Darwin's Origin of Species or a mediocre example of deistic natural theology. Recreating the the palpable sensation caused by the Vestiges, he explicates the technological, social, and cultural conditions that played a part in that excitement, and the transformations to which it contributed.

Published in 1844, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation remained anonymous for forty years. By the time a twelfth edition appeared with Robert Chambers' name attached, the developmental perspective that the book advanced had come to dominate the Victorian view of nature. Secord places the book itself (significantly veiled in anonymity) and its readers at the center of his story. Embodied and conveyed not only in volumes of different formats and prices tied to the economics of the steam press, but also in a profusion of letters delivered by the newly accessible post, at public lectures and in dinner party conversations, the book as text and as news evoked a kaleidoscope of responses in which Secord discerns patterns. These are arrayed along axes of confession and profession, institutions and urban geography, to name but a few.

Secord's work addresses one of the most important transformations in modern scientific thought, anchoring it to the specific and cluttered world of Victorian material culture, with its newspapers and armchairs, as well as its fossils and steam engines. He has presented us with a world peopled not only by members of scientific societies, but also by eager artisans and well-informed women. Enriched with a profusion of images that constitute evidenceÐnot mere illustrationÐthe book is a beautifully written tour of this world, as well as a resourcefully researched and compellingly presented interpretation.

The Pfizer Prize Committee
Frederick Gregory
Crosbie W. Smith
Joan Cadden

This page last modified: 26 November, 2002