23 https://doi.org/10.2979/victorianstudies.60.2.04 English eng Zytaruk, Maria Contributor <p><span style="color: rgb(85, 85, 85); font-family: Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">This essay investigates the use of mounted natural history specimens as "natural illustrations" in Victorian books. These published collections of specimens, framed by literary and biblical extracts, differed from both scientific exsiccatae (published collections of dried specimens) and from albums compiled by private individuals in the nineteenth century. Advancing the tenets of natural theology, these volumes became implicated in charitable, consumerist, and political discourses. Though they resemble scientific specimens and the sea-side souvenirs of the Victorian period, natural illustrations, in their almost startling materiality, resist the logic of both the specimen and the souvenir.</span><br></p> Indiana University Press Spring 2018 pdf ISSN 0042-5222 Literary canon Preserved in Print: Victorian Books with Mounted Natural History Specimens mixed material Indiana University Press