William Bartram, the Search for Nature's Design

An important figure in early American science and letters, William Bartram (1739-1823) has been known almost exclusively for his classic book, Travels. William Bartram, The Search for Nature's Design presents new material in the form of art, letters, and unpublished manuscripts. These documents expand our knowledge of Bartram as an explorer, naturalist, artist, writer, and citizen of the early Republic.

Part 1, the correspondence, includes letters to and from Bartram's family, friends, and peers, establishing his developing consciousness about the natural world as well as his passion for rendering it in drawing. The difficult business of undertaking scientific study and commercial botany in the eighteenth century comes alive through letters that detail travel arrangements, enduring hardship, and mentoring. Commonly regarded as a recluse or eccentric, Bartram nstead emerges as deeply engaged with the major ideas, issues, and intellectual life of his time.

Part 2 presents selections from Bartram's diverse but little-known unpublished writings. Leading scholars in their field introduce manuscripts such as a draft for Travels, garden diaries faithfully kept, an antislavery treatise scrawled on the back of a plant catalog, a commonplace book, pharmacopoeia compiled for his brothers, and exacting accounts of Native American culture. Each selection reveals another dimension of Bartram's unending interest in the world he encountered at home and while traveling through the southern colonies.