The Invention of Nature

Leo Hollis who – as so many times before – channelled my ideas in the right direction and who summed it all up in one sentence. The title is on you!

My mother Brigitte Wulf has once again helped me with French translations and schlepped books from and to libraries in Germany for me, while my father Herbert Wulf read all the chapters in several versions. And thank you for coming to Weimar and Jena.

Constanze von Unruh worked again through the entire manuscript – leading me with honesty, cleverness and encouragement through this book. Thank you for everything and all those evenings.

Many of my friends and family have read draft chapters – editing, commenting and suggesting; thank you Robert Rowland Smith, John Jungclaussen, Rebecca Bernstein and Regan Ralph. A special thank you for Regan who is the most fabulous friend and who has given me a second home – as well as coming with me to Yosemite. Thank you so much. I would also like to thank Hermann and Sigrid Düringer for letting me stay in their beautiful flat in Berlin during my research there, and to my brother Axel Wulf for information on barometers, as well as Anne Wigger for help on Faust. A big thank you to Lisa O’Sullivan who has been a great supporter and friend … and who looked after me with steely determination when I was stranded in her apartment in New York during Hurricane Sandy. You’re now a certified member of my apocalyptic team.

The biggest thank you goes to my super-smart best and oldest friend Julia-Niharika Sen who worked through the entire manuscript, word by word, again and again – taking it apart and then helping me to put it together again. And thank you for coming with me to Ecuador and Venezuela – spending your holidays following Humboldt’s footsteps. Instead of beaches and cocktails, there were tarantulas and altitude sickness. Standing together with you at 5,000 metres on Chimborazo was one of the best moments of my life. We did it! Thank you for being there. Always. I could have not written this book without you.

This book is dedicated to my wonderful and clever daughter Linnéa who had to live with Humboldt for a long time. Thank you for being the best of all daughters. You make me complete. And happy.

Illustration Credits

Illustrations within the text

© Alamy: 2.3, 12.2/Interfoto; 14.2/Heritage Image Partnership Ltd; 17.2/Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library. René Binet, Esquisses Décoratives (c.1905): 22.4 left. © bpk/Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin: 15.2. Catalogue souvenir de l’Exposition Universelle 1900 Paris: 22.2 left. © Collection of Museo Nacional de Colombia/Registro1204/photo Oscar Monsalve: 7.2/Alexander von Humboldt, Geografia de las plantas cerca del Ecuador

(1803). Courtesy of Concord Museum, Massachusetts: 19.1, 19.2. Ernst-Haeckel-Haus, Jena: 22.1. Herman Klencke, Alexander von Humboldt’s Leben und Wirken, Reisen und Wissen (1870):1.1, 3.3, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 7.1, 16.1, 16.2, 20.4. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC: 3.2, 8.2, 21.1, 23.4. By permission of the Linnean Society of London: 3.1/Martin Hendriksen Vahl, Symbolae Botanicae (1790–4); 22.3 right, 22.5 right/Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur (1899–1904). Benjamin C. Maxham: 19.3/daguerreotype, 1856. Ministerio de Cultura del Ecuador, Quito: 3.4. John Muir Papers/Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library, Stockton, California © 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust and courtesy of The Bancroft Library/University of California, Berkeley: 23.1, 23.2, 23.3. Private Collections: 4.3, 9.1, 20.3. © Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin: 10.1. Wellcome Library, London: prl.img1, 4.2, 7.3, 8.1, 12.1/Alexander von Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, 2 vols (1810–13); prl.img2/Heinrich Berghaus, The Physical Atlas (1845); 1.2; 1.3/Alexander von Humboldt, Versuch über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser

(1797); 2.1; 2.2; 4.1; 6.1, 6.2, 8.3/Alcide D. d’Orbingy, Voyage pittoresque dans les deux Amériques (1836); 9.2; 9.3; 9.4; 10.2; 11.1; 13.1, 14.1, 20.3/Traugott Bromme, Atlas zu Alex. v. Humboldt’s Kosmos (1851); 13.2; 15.1; 16.3; 17.1/Charles Darwin, Journal of Researches (1902); 17.3/Charles Darwin, Journal of Researches (1845); 18.1; 20.1/E.T. Hamy, Aimé Bonpland, médecin et naturaliste, explorateur de l’Amérique du Sud (1906); 20.2.

Colour plates