Botanical Networking: Four Holograph Letters from Charlotte Smith to James Edward Smith

Abstract

Four holograph letters from the poet and novelist Charlotte Smith (1749–1806) to the botanist James Edward Smith (no relation) have recently come to light. They are published here in full for the first time, with scholarly annotations and a brief introduction. J. E. Smith purchased Linnaeus's collections in 1784 and brought them to England, where he founded the Linnean Society of London. Charlotte Smith's letters to him, written between 1797 and 1803, provide fresh perspectives on her vocation as an author, her botanical pursuits, and her participation in the scientific networks of the English Enlightenment. She inhabited a vernacular culture, focused on locality, in which there was no division between natural science and the arts. The letters open a window on to the everyday life of an impoverished woman writer, and reveal dimensions of her personality and intellectual interests beyond what is found in her published writings.