Description: "Tells the story of the Solanaceae plant family as revealed in both the scientific and the sentimental discourse of the Victorian era, as advances in medical knowledge, horticulture, evolutionary theory, and crucially, human desire, transformed nightshades' botanical reputation. From the Old World species bittersweet and belladonna, the book moves to the potato and tobacco, the two New World species that effected the greatest change in the family's Victorian reputation, and concludes with an account of the ornamental petunia and the edible pepper, eggplant, and tomato"-- Provided by publisher.
Review Quotes:
Campbell's discussion of Solanaceae is erudite and wide-ranging--it touches on such topics as Charles Darwin, picturesque aesthetics, witchcraft, and glass technologies--and although the book operates in the same general vein as Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History (2002), Jack Turner's Spice: The History of a Temptation (2005), and other more journalistic object microhistories, it's distinctive in its literary-critical commitment to evaluating references to Solanaceae in all manner of texts, including botanical treatises, newspaper reports, and medical advertisements, as well as poetry and fiction.
--H-Environment