This project was made possible through the generous help of many colleagues and institutions. It began with an invitation from Rebecca Stott to organize a panel on Darwin and the Theatre for the international Darwin Festival in Cambridge, England, in 2009. The ideas and the relationships formed there have been truly inspiring. A fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust 2011–2012 enabled me to complete the research and draft most of the book, and I am deeply grateful for this support. I also thank the Faculty of English at the University of Oxford for granting several periods of leave, funds for research assistance and travel to conferences, and help with permissions; I could not have completed the project without the Faculty’s support and that of the John Fell Fund of the University of Oxford. St. Catherine’s College has also provided invaluable support in the form of several periods of leave, generous financial assistance, and a uniquely interdisciplinary environment in which to work.
Many individuals have given generously of their time and advice. I am especially grateful to Stuart Firestein for enthusiastically supporting the book from its inception, to Martin Puchner for his astute reading of the entire manuscript, and to Sos Eltis, whose extraordinary knowledge of Victorian and modern drama has enriched my work; she patiently read and commented on drafts of chapters, and many of the plays I discuss in the book were her suggestions. Laura Marcus has given ongoing encouragement and support and I have benefited enormously from her expertise. Conversations with Jane Goodall anchored and clarified some of my ideas and stimulated the chapter on Beckett in particular; I have cherished these opportunities to learn from her. Jean-Michel Rabaté kindly read a draft of the Beckett chapter and offered invaluable suggestions, and Peter Fifield shared his wealth of knowledge and expert advice on many occasions. Other colleagues whose suggestions have helped develop and strengthen my project include John Holmes, Narve Fulsås, Sally Shuttleworth, John Bolin, James Secord, Will Abberley, and Chris Ponting. Discussions with Alastair Barr, Gordon M. Shepherd, and Gordon M. G. Shepherd have further enriched my understanding of a wide range of scientific fields and concepts.
Several colleagues have generously shared material with me, and I am especially grateful to Tore Rem, Eivind Tjønneland, Joanne E. Gates, Pietro Corsi, Michael Billington, and Elinor Shaffer. John Holmes, Helen Small, Michael Whitworth, and George Levine patiently read research proposal drafts and offered valuable advice. Sophie Duncan provided research assistance over several years, and I could not have completed this project without her skilful and insightful help. My undergraduate and postgraduate students have been a delightful and challenging sounding board for many of the ideas in this book, and I have learned so much from them, as I have from the ever-widening literature and science circle here at Oxford. The newly-established TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities) has also been invaluable in providing a home for Ibsen and Scandinavian Studies here at Oxford and strengthening my work in these areas.
Colleagues at St. Catherine’s have given exceptional encouragement and support, in particular Bart Van Es and Jeremy Dimmick, Richard Parish in helping with French translations, and Barrie Juniper for sharing his wealth of botanical knowledge. College librarian Luda Gromova speedily procured every conceivable book I needed. The librarians in the Social Science Library, Oxford, have also been extremely helpful. My thanks also go to the archivists of the Fales Collection, who assisted me greatly with my research on Elizabeth Robins, and to the librarians at the British Library for helping me navigate the extraordinary resources of the Lord Chamberlain Collection of Plays.
I am grateful for the opportunities to share my work in progress in the Department of Drama and Performance at the University of Exeter; the Northern Modernisms conference in Birmingham; the Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies seminar series at Oxford; the University of Warwick’s Beckett and the Brain project; the Samuel Beckett Centre at Trinity College, Dublin; the Ibsen Centre at the University of Oslo; the International Federation for Theatre Research conferences; and the Drama and Performance seminar series here at Oxford and other places. My thanks also go to Bernard Lightman and Bennett Zon for commissioning me to write a chapter on theatre and evolution for their book Evolution and Victorian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); their comments have been invaluable for the opening chapters of my book. The editors of Women: A Cultural Review also deserve my thanks for their encouragement in publishing my article on James A. Herne and Elizabeth Robins.
My editor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has unfailingly supported this project, and I am hugely grateful for his enthusiasm and faith in the book. I am also grateful for the expert guidance and patient assistance of Kathryn Schell and for the astute and generous responses of the anonymous readers for Columbia University Press.
Living with this project for the longest time, though, day in and day out, have been my family, who have provided an unbeatable combination of encouragement, scientific and linguistic expertise, curiosity about the world, joy, and a sense of humor. I could not have written this without them: my parents, siblings, and siblings-in-law; my children Graham, Callum, and Gavin; and especially my husband, Alastair. This book is for him.
References to Elizabeth Robins’s work printed with kind permission of Independent Age (Registered Charity No. 210729) (http://www.independentage.org).
I am grateful for permission from the editors to quote from selected chapters in Thomas F. Glick and Elinor Shaffer, eds., The Literary and Cultural Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe, vol. 3 (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).
