Somerville Mary

Queen Of Science


Скачать книгу

to find her struggle less than interesting becomes in Martha’s voice apologetic. Martha turns what is a contrast between the privacies of a life and the fame and achievements of the woman who lived it into a rather weak insistence that Mary Somerville was first and foremost a wife and mother. How can a new edition cope with this kind of problem?

      The autobiography exists in three drafts. First there is the notebook of 1859 which sketches out shape and motivation; then there is an extensive draft entirely in Mary Somerville’s hand; most but not all of this draft reaches the printed version with some changes in arrangement as well as changes in spelling and punctuation. The punctuation of this first version is very light and some additional punctuation is certainly needed for print and, since Mary Somerville is avowedly a bad speller (see p. 97), the corrections of her spelling (probably not as insecure as Joanna Baillie’s) are uncontentious. This first draft peters out towards the end so that there is no firm conclusion to what was still a continuing life. The second draft is largely a copy of the first in Martha Somerville’s hand, with marginal comments and additions in Mary Somerville’s hand, and a few additional sheets wholly in Mary Somerville’s hand. There are also editorial comments in the margin in a third hand, probably Mary Charlotte’s, mostly injunctions to omit or confirmations that something has been omitted, which suggests that the final version was known at this stage. There are some additions in this version, most but not all of which appear in the printed text.

      This edition does not pretend to be a complete re-editing of the recollections – indeed this would be impossible at this distance. Mary Somerville’s own final intentions are not completely clear and minor changes are usually not worth commenting upon. The text, as we have it, loses some of the colloquial flow of the first draft, simply by introducing punctuation, but I am persuaded that Mary Somerville would have expected her text to be corrected by the printers (see again her comments on p. 97). There is no doubt, however, that there are some editorial decisions taken by Martha, probably in conjunction with the younger daughter, Mary, but some, more worryingly, on the advice of Frances Power Cobbe, who worshipped Mary Somerville and probably wished to smooth out some of her imperfections. Letters from Frances Cobbe to Martha suggest a fair amount of input into the printed text:

      The intention of making Mary Somerville loveable has moved well away from Mary Somerville’s own aim.

      Her last work was an autobiography, begun in her eighty-ninth year and completed before her death in 1872. A heavily edited version of this work was published in 1873 […]. Her daughter, Martha, advised by their friend Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904), omitted from the printed life markedly scientific sections of the manuscript, as well as many references to persons and events they judged uninteresting or unsuitable as contents. A selection of letters to Mary Somerville from eminent persons was woven into the text. […] Personal Recollections emerges with many Victorian touches that would have been foreign to Mary Somerville herself (EP, 194).

      This is true but, nevertheless, the effect of the Victorian touches is most interesting. The processes of the production of the final text, and hence of the version of Mary Somerville that her remaining family and friends wished to present to the world, are in themselves valuable and worth preserving but, at the same time, I think it worth restoring some of the rougher edges of the earlier drafts.

      At the same time, it would be another kind of falsification to try to remove the effects of Martha’s editing since the presentation of the mother by the daughter has a special quality in itself: Martha adds as well as taking away. She adds, of course, her own comments on both her parents; insists; just as tartly as her mother, that the obituaries were quite wrong in suggesting that Mary Somerville’s first husband assisted her studies, and she adds letters from contemporaries which act as personal and professional validations ofMary Somerville. I have, therefore, tried to provide a text that can be read simultaneously as the version of a Victorian daughter, Martha, and the production of her mother. The intended result is to offer a plurality ofMary Somervilles, all with their special kind of truth. I should like to look now a little more closely at some of these Mary Somervilles, trying to show that, although plural, they are not separate.

      FEMINIST, MATHEMATICIAN, ASTRONOMER,

      BOTANIST, GEOGRAPHER – SCIENTIST:

      In this section I am particularly indebted to Elizabeth Patterson’s searching study. Its introduction (i–xiii) offers an admirable summation of the changing state of British science in the years 1815 to 1840, roughly the period of Mary Somerville’s London residence (allowing, of course, for her continental tours). Elizabeth Patterson sets out to answer the question: ‘How did Mary Somerville move from self-taught provincial to celebrated scientific lady?’ (EP, xiii), and does so against a wide understanding of the nature and status of science in the period.

      How