The Road to Midnight Mushrooms

Shakespeare and his contemporaries saw mushrumps as gateways to magic, or as vile and lowly things. But times are changing and the way is led by those at the forefront of scientific revolution; mushrumps become mushrooms.

Join Martin Killeen, Senior Librarian at the Cadbury Research Library, and artist Anne Parouty, as they trace the early development of the scientific method as it came to be applied to fungi, through the works of Frances Bacon, Erasmus Darwin, John Gerad and William Withering. This talk will examine the impact on successive editions of Shakespeare as the language of poetry bends to the times.

Accompanies the exhibition Imagining Mushrooms II at the Coach House, Winterbourne House and Garden 14-28 March.

Presented by the Cadbury Research Library in association with Winterbourne House and Garden as part of the University's Arts and Science Festival 2016.