First page of The Fairy land of science

First page of the book The fairy-land of science by Arabella B. Buckley (Edward Stanford, London, 1879).

The illustrated page opened the children’s book of science, written and illustrated by Arabella Buckley, who championed science education. She used the notion of ‘new’ magical and often invisible (or misunderstood) forces, such as gravity, electricity and magnetism, being intrinsically more interesting than the ‘old’ magic of folklore and fairies.

Arabella Burton Buckley [married name Fisher] (1840-1929) British populariser of science, acted as secretary to Sir Charles Lyell FRS until his death in 1879.