Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T09:38:51.731Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

GENDER, ROYALTY, AND SEXUALITY IN JOHN GOULD'S BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2007

Jonathan Smith
Affiliation:
University of Michigan-Dearborn

Extract

WHEN THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGIST and bird illustrator John Gould launched his monumental publication on The Birds of Australia late in 1840, the cover of the serial parts bore the image of the lyre bird (Menura superba) and a prominent dedication, “by permission,” to the young and recently-married Queen Victoria (Correspondence 2: 213; see Figure 4). A few months later, issuing the part with the plate and descriptive text for the lyre bird, Gould declared Menura superba “an emblem for Australia among its birds” (Birds of Australia vol. 3, plate 14; see Figure 5). This visual juxtaposition of Victoria and the lyre bird also reflected an association between them in Gould's mind, the lyre bird serving as emblem not only for the Australian colonies but also for their Queen. The association became more explicit and was extended to include Victoria's Consort in the decades that followed, for although The Birds of Australia was completed in 1848, Gould issued irregular supplemental installments during the 1850s and 60s and published a two-volume Handbook to the Birds of Australia in 1865. One of the first discoveries Gould announced and figured in the Supplement was a new species of lyre bird, which he named Menura alberti in 1850 to acknowledge Prince Albert's “personal virtues” and “liberal support.” In 1862, in a tribute likely inspired by the recent death of the Prince, Gould divided Menura superba into two species and christened the newly-created one Menura victoriae, thereby providing his grieving queen with an avian namesake to accompany Albert's.

Type
EDITORS' TOPIC: VICTORIAN NATURAL HISTORY
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Casteras Susan. “The Wise Child and her ‘Offspring’: Some Changing Faces of Queen Victoria.” Homans and Munich 18299.
Clarke F. G. 1977. The Land of Contrarieties: British Attitudes to the Australian Colonies, 1828–1855. Melbourne: Melbourne UP
Cumming Valerie. 1989. Royal Dress: The Image and the Reality 1580 to the Present Day. New York: Holmes & Meier
Darwin Charles. 1990. Charles Darwin's Marginalia. Ed. Mario A. DiGregorio. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland
Darwin Charles. 1981. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. 1871. Princeton: Princeton UP
Datta Ann. 1997. John Gould in Australia. Melbourne: Miegunyah
Gates Barbara. 1998. Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World. Chicago: U of Chicago P
Gernsheim Helmut and Alison. 1959. Victoria R: A Biography with Four Hundred Illustrations based on her Personal Photograph Albums. New York: Putnam's
Gould John. The Birds of Australia. 7 vols. London, 184048.
Gould John. The Birds of Europe. 5 vols. London, 183237.
Gould John. 1865. Handbook to the Birds of Australia. 2 vols. London
Gould John. 1848. Introduction to the Birds of Australia. London
Gould John. 1998 John Gould the Bird Man: Correspondence. Ed. Gordon Sauer. 4 vols. to date. Mansfield Centre: Martino
Gould John. The Mammals of Australia. London, 184563.
Gould John. 1840: “On the ‘bower’ or playing-house constructed by the Satin-bird.Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 8 94.Google Scholar
Gould John. Supplement to the Birds of Australia. London, 185169.
1842: “Gould's Birds of Australia.” Annals and Magazine of Natural History 9 33739.
1840: “Gould's Birds of Australia.” Spectator 13 1239.
Her Majesty's Bal Masque.” Illustrated London News 1 (14 May 1842): 79.
Homans Margaret. 1998. Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British Culture, 1837–1876. Chicago: U of Chicago P
Homans Margaret, & Adrienne Munich, eds. 1997. Remaking Queen Victoria. Cambridge: Cambridge UP
Houston Gail Turley. 1999. Royalties: The Queen and Victorian Writers. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia
Hughes Robert. 1987. The Fatal Shore. New York: Knopf
Inglis K. S. 1974. The Australian Colonists: An Exploration of Social History. Melbourne: Melbourne UP
Lambourne Maureen. 1987. John Gould – Bird Man. Milton Keynes: Royal Society for Nature Conservation
Loudon Jane. 1850. The Entertaining Naturalist. 1843. London: Bohn
Mandler Peter. 1990. Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform: Whigs and Liberals, 1830–1852. Oxford: Clarendon
M[itchell]., [David] W[illiam]. 1841: “Gould's Birds.” Westminster Review 35 271303.
Munich Adrienne. 1996. Queen Victoria's Secrets. New York: Columbia UP
Nadel Ira B. 1987: “Portraits of the Queen.” Victorian Poetry 25.34 16991.Google Scholar
Ormond Richard. 1981. Sir Edwin Landseer. New York: Rizzoli
Ritvo Harriet. 1997. The Platypus and the Mermaid. Cambridge: Harvard UP
Ryan Simon. 1996. The Cartographic Eye: How Explorers Saw Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP
St. Aubyn Giles. 1991. Queen Victoria: A Portrait. London: Sinclair-Stevenson
Sauer Gordon C. 1982. John Gould the Bird Man: A Chronology and Bibliography. London: Henry Sotheran
Schama Simon. 1986: “The Domestication of Majesty: Royal Family Portraiture, 1500–1850.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17 15583.Google Scholar
Scherren Henry. 1905. The Zoological Society of London: A Sketch of its Foundation and Development. London: Cassell
Smith Bernard. 1960. European Vision and the South Pacific, 1768–1850. Oxford: Clarendon
Smith Jonathan. 2001: “John Gould, Charles Darwin, and the Picturing of Natural Selection.” Book Collector 50 5176.Google Scholar
Tree Isabella. 1991. The Ruling Passion of John Gould. New York: Grove Weidenfeld
Weintraub Stanley. 1997. Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince Albert. New York: Free
Williams Richard. 1997. The Contentious Crown: Public Discussion of the British Monarchy in the Reign of Queen Victoria. Aldershot: Ashgate
Wood J. G. 1855. The New Illustrated Natural History. London: Routledge
Yeazell Ruth Bernard. 1991. Fictions of Modesty: Women and Courtship in the English Novel. Chicago: U of Chicago P