Stephen Halliday

Buzz, Buzz, Buzz

Bugs and the Victorians

By

Yale University Press 341pp £25 order from our bookshop

This book’s title does not do justice to its contents since some of the most interesting material covers events that occurred either before Victoria came to the throne or long after she died. It describes the activities of Victorian entomologists but also introduces their eighteenth-century forebears, who set some (often misleading) ground rules for the science, and their twentieth-century successors who made practical use of their discoveries in the fields of agriculture and medicine. It also places interest in insects in a broader historical context, avoiding the danger of becoming a technical treatise. 

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • Why did the 'bold and determined' Empress Matilda never manage to become Queen regnant? Peter Marshall reviews a n… ,
    • From the Archive: Martyn Bedford on Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' ,
    • In 'Silenced Voices' reports the ongoing story of the human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been… ,
    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    Follow Us