The Social Dinosaur - The Life of the Mesozoic in the Popular Imagination

A history of Dinosaurs in popular literature and culture, from the Victorian age to the present, this book is the first to explore the many ways in which the prehistoric creatures have seized the public imagination. The Social Dinosaur charts the ways in which cultural attitudes to dinosaurs have changed over time, from the showcase displays of Victorian museums, through the popular science fiction tales of Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury to the blockbuster Jurassic Park film franchise. Extensively illustrated throughout, the book also examines how dinosaurs have been used in educational texts and popular science writing to fire the imagination of young children and the general public and provide a vivid case study of the intersection of science and culture over the last 150 years.>

About the author

Will Tattersdill is Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author of Science Fiction and the Fin-de-Siecle Periodical Press (2016).

Product details

• Authors: Will Tattersdill
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 11.06.2026
• EAN: 9781350010727
• ISBN: 978-1-350-01072-7
• No. of pages: 256
• Series: Explorations in Science and Literature
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture, LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature, LITERARY CRITICISM / Science Fiction & Fantasy, Literature & literary studies, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: from c 2000