How will we ever refine our eyes to see atoms and our ears to hear the messages of ants? (Seven Poor Men of Sydney 17)
Christina Stead’s critical engagement with the science of her time began at a young age. As a child she read Darwin, Huxley and Spencer. She also recalled being ‘dragged to […] weekly or monthly meetings […] of scientists’ by her ichthyologist father (Lidoff 182–83). While Stead had serious qualms about becoming a scientist, an early grounding in science fostered a keen interest in contemporary scientific debates and how such debates circulated in popular and literary discourse. Most importantly Stead, like many of the nineteenth-century writers that she admired often described aesthetics using scientific metaphors. In an interview with Rodney Wetherell, Stead claimed, ‘I was brought up by a naturalist, and I am a naturalist’ (Wetherell 439). While this often quoted comment sheds light on…