Call Number:

C1152

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 1 box
• 0.2 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Sir Richard Owen Collection, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1824-1866 (inclusive)

Creator:

Princeton University. Library. Special Collections and Owen, Richard, 1804-1892.

Form:

Lecture notes -- 19th century.., Letters -- 19th century., and Manuscripts, English -- 19th century.

Abstract:

Consists of selected manuscript material of Sir Richard Owen, the nineteenth-century English biologist and paleontologist who coined the term "dinosaur."

Sir Richard Owen was an English biologist, comparative anatomist, and paleontologist. He originally started his education and career by learning medicine, and completed his medical course in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, where he came under the influence of the eminent surgeon John Abernethy. Owen was the first Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the Royal College of Surgeons in London from 1836 to 1856. (This was a large collection of human and animal anatomical specimens belonging to John Hunter.) He did pioneer work on parthenogenesis and opposed Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. He produced a vast array of scientific work and famously coined the word "dinosaur." One of Owen's greatest achievements was his campaign to get a new home for the natural specimens in the British Museum. This resulted in the now famous Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London. Owen was knighted in 1884.

The collection consists of an original autograph manuscript, lecture notes, and two letters of Sir Richard Owen. The manuscript is a draft (56 leaves) of Part Two of a "Report on British Fossil Mammalia." It contains some printed notes and many corrections and annotations by the author. Some of the leaves used by Owen were from an earlier manuscript on zoology. The lecture notes were taken by Owen while he was a student in college. In addition, there is a letter, dated 19 December 1866, by Owen to the President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, recommending C. H. Hitchcock of Amherst for study in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons; the second letter (undated), addressed to "My Dear Neighbour," is about fish and plants of the Mediterranean.