In 1836, the University of Oxford’s Professor of Geology, William Buckland, published a groundbreaking book that sold 10,000 copies in a matter of months and became “quite as much a newspaper subject” as a “horrid murder or a glorious victory.” 190 years later, Leeds Central Library recovered its copy of this same book, which had been missing for half a century.

Join us at Leeds Central Library with science historian Professor Topham for a talk based on his prize-winning study, Reading the Book of Nature (2022), where he will explore why the book was published, what was remarkable about it, and what readers made of it. Among other things, we will look at the production of its many beautiful illustrative plates, which included a hand-coloured geological section that folded out to four feet in length and left readers breathless. We will also examine the rich diversity of uses to which readers put it – whether as a handy guide to the British Museum collections or as an opportunity for seduction and elopement.