Dr. Michell DiMeo’s book is the first comprehensive, book-length biography of Lady Ranelagh and one that demonstrates that she was far more than merely the great “Father of Modern Chemistry” Robert Boyle’s supportive sister and hostess “who may have been present but not intellectually engaged,” as characterized by Stephen Shapin and some other historians. (3, 168) Rather, Dr. DiMeo shows that not only did she “help shape some of [Boyle’s] philosophical publications and collaborate with his experimentation with chemical medicine, but she was also an intellectual authority in her own right, composing her own theological and political treatises and corresponding with an intellectual network comprising the most influential men and women of her time” – an important network she introduced her younger, teenage brother to in 1644 after he finished his Grand Tour. Moreover, she was an adept lobbyist for variety of causes including liberty of religious conscience, conversion of native Americans and Irish Catholics, and a respected ethical adviser, medical practitioner, and tester of medical recipes in her own right. (3, 184, 193)
The structure of Dr. DiMeo’s history of Lady Ranelagh’s intellectual life, one inextricably intertwined with Robert Boyle’s, is chronological beginning in chapter one with her birth to a wealthy, connected, leading Anglo-Irish family in Ireland in 1615 and ending in chapter seven with her death in London in 1691. The second chapter sets forth several of the overarching themes of the book and explores her deep involvement with the Hartlib circle in London and her rising status as the “incomparable” Lady Ranelagh as she became known to contemporaries. This chapter and the introduction also address the limitations of the surviving sources for documenting the life of an intellectual woman in the seventeenth century and Dr. DiMeo’s efforts to overcome them. (10, 203)
Lady Ranelagh became one of the central members of the vibrant Hartlib correspondence circle “which began in London in 1641 and centered on Samuel Hartlib, John Dury, and Jan Amos Kominski,” and included John Milton, Henry Oldenberg, and numerous prominent intellectuals in England and on the continent. (44) Dr. DiMeo summaries Evan Bourke’s quantitative network visualization analysis to demonstrate that Lady Ranelagh was “a central correspondent within this international circle” as demonstrated by a “betweenness” measure that ranked her sixth of 766 correspondents showing how important she was in connecting people including her famous younger brother who benefited enormously from her connections and intellectual guidance throughout his life. (45-46, Ahnert at 12)
DiMeo emphasizes that Lady Ranelagh followed the contemporary social convention of women “chos[ing] to disseminate their writings primarily via manuscript coteries and networks instead of print publications,” which at the time was still considered a “more elite method” of publication and more consistent with the piety, charity, and dignity expected of seventeenth century elite women. Recent historians have established how effectively women used the Republic of Letters “as tools to exert agency in a number of spheres” which DiMeo also demonstrates in this work.
Lady Ranelagh’s reliance on the genres of manuscript circulation and letter circulation along with long-standing collection practices of archivists and historians to undervalue collections of female documents create challenges in reconstructing Lady Ranelagh’s life, as well as those of other women. (202) Dr. DiMeo adroitly uses her finely honed skills as an archivist and historian to piece together the details of Lady Ranelagh’s life by plumbing the archives and writings of male family members and friends, including her famous brother, the digitized Hartlib papers, and a host of her influential male correspondents including Samuel Hartlib, William Penn, Robert Boyle, Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society, and others. (2, 202) Dr. DiMeo is highly successful in this endeavor to uncover and interpret the scattered sources and has deep experience for the task as she was Director of the Othmer Library at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, and also managed the Hagley Heritage Curators program and Manuscripts and Archives department at the Hagley Museum and Library. She holds a PhD in English and History from the University of Warwick, a Certificate in the Curation and Management of Digital Assets from the University of Maryland, and possesses deep experience with digital archives. Dr. DiMeo’s research focuses on the intellectual and cultural history of early modern science and medicine, with particular interests in domestic science, medical remedies, and women practitioners. Consistent with these interests, in this history, she explores Lady Ranelagh’s important contributions to the emerging fields of chemical medicine and empirical science as well as the challenges facing intellectual women generally in the seventeenth century.
Dr. DiMeo shows the depth of Lady Ranelagh’s influence on Robert Boyle’s work. For example, she argues that Lady “Ranelagh’s own expertise in writing, trading, and testing medical recipes must be seen as a contribution to Boyle’s evolving thoughts on” medicine. Thus, Lady Ranelagh’s influence is seen in Boyle’s important publication in 1685 of Specifick Medicines in which he views “recipes as experiments to test philosophical theories and principles” which is reflective of his partnership with his sister as to medical matters and the empirical practices both were engaged in. (184) Dr. DiMeo shows that Lady Ranelagh often “shaped the works of her brother prior to publication” and “offered critical appraisal and encouragement,” for example, for his critic of Aristotelian modes of inquiry embodied in his The Origin of Forms and Qualities published in 1666. (133, 189)
Dr. DiMeo also places Lady Ranelagh’s experiences and accomplishments in the context of the history of science. She notes that the founding of the Royal Society in London in 1660, with a formal charter following in 1662, is often viewed by historians of science as a “turning point” when science became “institutionalized.” (123-24) Londa Schiebinger and feminist historians have argued the founding of Royal societies is also the turning point when women were excluded from natural science as the Societies did not admit women and emphasized print publications to their further detriment. (124) Dr. DiMeo argues instead “the decreased diversity among experimenters took place over a much longer period, and was not directly related to the founding of the Royal Society.” (125) She argues persuasively that women, such as Lady Ranelagh continued “preparing medicines, perfecting chemical techniques, writing about and debating the latest philosophies” often through letters and with the household as a primary local for learning. (125) Four members of Ranelagh’s Hartlib circle were founding fellows of the Royal Society, including her younger brother Robert Boyle, and other friends and correspondents later joined including her close friend Henry Oldenburg who managed its journal, and her son Richard Jones who became a member in 1663. (124) Dr. DiMeo concludes that she maintained close connections to the fellows of the Royal Society and “though she was not a part of the Royal Society, Ranelagh assertively engaged with other political causes and intellectual projects throughout the restoration, demonstrating that she was not the silent victim excluded from creating new knowledge and shaping public opinion.” (127)
Dr. DiMeo’s biography is deeply researched and readable and should appeal to both specialists and the general reader. Dr. DiMeo convincingly demonstrates that Lady Ranelagh merited the honorific “incomparable” bestowed upon her by contemporaries as despite her gender precluding her from attending university or joining the Royal Society, Lady Ranelagh built an impressive network through which she “participated in controversial political cases, influenced decision makers, shaped the publications of male contemporaries, and wrote her own pieces that circulated widely in manuscript.” (203) The book contributes to the history of science and gender by demonstrating how women “could leverage social status and piety to gain the respect of others and shape the public sphere” including chemical medicine and other disciplines despite their exclusion from the Royal Society and reluctance to risk their reputations through print media.
