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About this site

Joseph Dalton Hooker was arguably the most important British botanist of the nineteenth century. A traveller and plant-collector, he was one of Charles Darwin’s closest friends and eventually became director of Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The image on the left shows Joseph Hooker in 1896. It was taken by William J. Hawker (No. 1 Gervis Buildings, Bournemouth) and I am very grateful to Daniel Weinstock M.D. (of Geneva, New York) who sent me a copy.

These pages are intended to provide some basic information about Joseph Hooker. They include:

• NEW: my book Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the practices of Victorian Natural History, has just been published by the University of Chicago press (May 2008).
• My first book A Guinea Pig's History of Biology (which contains some Hooker material), was published in 2007 and is continuing to attract (mostly) positive reviews.
• more detailed biographical notes, including details of Hooker’s immediate family.
• Information about Hooker’s collectors and correspondents in Australia and New Zealand,
• A selection of Hooker’s writings.
• links to web resources that contain information about Hooker, the history of botany in general and the history of natural history more generally
• A guide to some of the archival sources concerning Hooker, including an online catalogue of Kew’s Hooker papers.
• A guide to published sources about Hooker.
• You can search this site.
• If you would like to know about Jim Endersby, who runs this site, click here for a link to his website.

This site went live in May 2001, since when it has received over 40,000 visitors. It was redesigned in October 2002 but is no longer being updated regularly.

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