The winner of the BSLS Book Prize 2012, announced at the recent annual conference in Cardiff, is Theresa Kelley for Clandestine Marriage: Botany and Romantic Culture (Johns Hopkins UP).
Congratulations to Professor Kelley on taking this accolade, in a year with a very strong shortlist. Her book is a major contribution to the understanding of Romanticism and nature, synthesising a wide range of literary, scientific and philosophical writing on botany, and blending impressive original readings of writers such as John Clare, Mary Wollstonecraft and Percy Shelley with intricate considerations of plants from the perspective of material culture and the circulation of objects, poetic and visual tropes, and European philosophical writing during the Romantic era.
A review of the winning title will appear on the reviews pages in the near future. A blog by the author describing some of the challenges of addressing Romantic-era botany through literature and science in Clandestine Marriage can be found here.
