Wonderful Webs: Nature, Art and Science in The Darwin Family Juvenilia

Piesse, J ORCID: 0000-0003-2390-9201 Wonderful Webs: Nature, Art and Science in The Darwin Family Juvenilia. Journal of Juvenilia Studies. ISSN 2561-8318 (Accepted)

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Abstract

Using the figure of the web as an organising metaphor, this reflective essay explores a vibrant but little-known ecosystem of juvenilia created by members of the Darwin-Wedgwood family. The first part, which provides an evaluative overview of the texts, including works created by Charles Darwin, his children, and grandchildren, identifies three distinct, but organically connected, subsets of the juvenilia. In the second section, I focus on representations of nature in visual art and fiction produced by Darwin’s children, including texts created on Darwin’s rough manuscript pages. Drawing on the texts’ unique proximity to Darwin’s life and work, I offer reflections on their representations of relationships between wildness and domesticity, art and science, and innocence and progress. Their child creators’ resourceful and creative capacity to find wonder in a natural world already under pressure, I suggest, offers a hopeful paradigm for children today.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
Divisions:	Humanities and Social Science
Publisher:	International Society of Literary Juvenilia, University of Alberta Library
Date of acceptance:	3 December 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	4 December 2025
Date Deposited:	04 Dec 2025 15:34
Last Modified:	04 Dec 2025 15:34
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27666

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