The Invention of Nature

Goethe compared Humboldt to a ‘fountain with many spouts from which streams flow refreshingly and infinitely, so that we only have to place vessels under them’.

That fountain, I believe, has never run dry.

Acknowledgements

During 2013, I was the British Library Eccles Writer in Residence. It was the most productive year I have ever had in my writing career. I loved every moment of it. Thank you to everybody at the Eccles Centre – in particular Philip Davis, Jean Petrovic and Cara Rodway, as well as Matt Shaw and Philip Hatfield at the British Library. Thank you!

Over the past few years, I have received so much assistance from so many people that I feel humbled by their generosity. Thank you all for making the research and writing of this book the most wonderful experience. So many shared their knowledge and research, read chapters, opened address books, followed up on my queries (many times) and made me welcome across the world – it made this a proper Humboldtian experience of global networks.

In Germany I would like to thank Ingo Schwarz, Eberhard Knobloch, Ulrike Leitner and Regina Mikosch at Humboldt Forschungstelle in Berlin; Thomas Bach at the Ernst-Haeckel Haus in Jena; Frank Holl at Münchner Wissenschaftstage in Munich; Ilona Haak-Macht at Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Direktion Museen/Abteilung Goethe-Nationalmuseum; Jürgen Hamel; and Karl-Heinz Werner.

In Britain I would like to thank Adam Perkins at the Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, University Library, Cambridge; Annie Kemkaran-Smith at Down House in Kent; Neil Chambers at the Sir Joseph Banks Archive Project at Nottingham Trent University; Richard Holmes; Rosemary Clarkson at the Darwin Correspondence Project; Jenny Wattrus for Spanish translations; Eleni Papavasileiou at the Library & Archive, SS Great Britain Trust; John Hemming; Terry Gifford and his ‘reading group’ of scholars from Bath University; Lynda Brooks at the Linnean Society; Keith Moore and the rest of the staff at the Royal Society Library and Archives, London; Crestina Forcina at the Wellcome Trust, and the staff at the British Library and London Library.

In the United States I would like to thank Michael Wurtz at Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library; Bill Swagerty at the John Muir Center, University at the Pacific; Ron Eber; Marie Arana; Keith Thomson at the American Philosophical Society; the staff at the New York Public Library; Leslie Wilson at the Concord Free Public Library; Jeff Cramer at the the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods; Matt Burne at the Walden Woods Project; David Wood, Adrienne Donohue and Margaret Burke at the Concord Museum; Kim Burns; Jovanka Ristic and Bob Jaeger at the American Geographical Society Library at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries; Sandra Rebok; Prudence Doherty at Special Collections Bailey/Howe Library at the University of Vermont; Eleanor Harvey at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; Adam Goodheart at the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, Washington College. And at Monticello Anna Berkes, Endrina Tay, Christa Dierksheide, and Lisa Francavilla at the International Center for Jefferson Studies, the Jefferson Retirement Papers and the Jefferson Library; David Mattern at the Madison Retirement Papers at the University of Virginia; Aaron Sachs, Ernesto Bassi and the ‘Historians are Writers Group’ at Cornell University.

In South America I would like to thank Alberto Gómez Gutiérrez at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá; our guide Juanfe Duran Cassola in Ecuador and the staff at the archives of the Ministerio de Cultura y Patrimonio in Quito.

I am indebted to the following archives and libraries for their permission to quote from their manuscripts: the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; Royal Society, London; Concord Free Public Library, Concord MA; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz; Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California © 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust; New York Public Library; British Library; Special Collections, University of Vermont.

I would like to thank the wonderful team at John Murray, including Georgina Laycock, Caroline Westmore, Nick Davies, Juliet Brightmore and Lyndsey Ng.

At Knopf I would like to thank an equally wonderful team, including Edward Kastenmeier, Emily Giglierano, Jessica Purcell and Sara Eagle.

A very special and massive thank you to my wonderful friend and agent Patrick Walsh, who has wanted me to write a book about Alexander von Humboldt for more than a decade, and who first took me to Venezuela ten years ago. You’ve worked so unbelievably hard on this – line by line. This would have been a very different book without you. And thank you for believing in me and for looking after me. Without you, I would have a lot less fun in life and be without a job.

And a huge thank you to my friends and family who patiently endured my Humboldt fever: