This book argues that Victorian microscopists saw observation as a deeply embodied practice, where images are derived from a dynamic, unstable system linking the bodies of observer, instrument, apparatus, and object. These ideas echo nineteenth-century work by physiological psychologists, who proposed mind (perception, thinking, feeling) as a system of embodied, distributed, and dynamic processes, enacted and affected by automatic or unconscious reflex action, attention, mental training, and fatigue. I argue that microscopists circulated metaphorical and narrative tropes of embodiment through the varied forms of nineteenth-century print culture, striving to regulate the entanglement of these diverse bodies and establish microscopy as a difficult but valuable pursuit. They adapted existing concepts (such as beauty, the sublime, natural theology, and fairylands), or invented new ones (such as many-sided comprehension), to promote favored forms of embodiment and build community.

Throughout the book, I argue that Victorians understood wonder and skepticism not as incommensurate approaches to scientific observation but rather as complementary forms of embodiment. Romantic tropes of wonder solicit affective flows across the physical system, from observer to wriggling animalcule and back. A skeptical, realist approach, in contrast, seeks to train the reader’s eye, hand, body, and judgment, and to standardize the optical, mechanical, and cognitive interchanges of microscopical practice. Some literary forms like narrative can manipulate wonder and skepticism in productive tension, often on the same page; others create virtual storyspaces, enlisting the reader in a compelling form of virtual witnessing. These tropes shape every level of microscopical interest and proficiency; their circulation illuminates wider patterns of Victorian thought on embodiment, affect, and scientific practice. I show how this iconic instrument sparked important questions about optics, the senses, and scientific practice even as it enjoyed a surprisingly carnivalesque appeal in popular culture.

Here are some supplemental materials that accompany the book:

List of microscope titles included in library catalogues
Wonders of the Microscope titles