Fly

Description

For centuries, flies have been seen as mankind's enemy, blamed for plagues, subject to public excommunication in the Middle Ages and campaigns of extermination during the early years of the twentieth century. This book tracks the representation of the fly in in myth, literature, poetry, film, painting, theology and biology. There are chapters on artificial flies, the demonic fly, the erotics of the fly and the fly as carrier of disease.

Steven Connor is a critic, broadcaster and cultural historian. He is Professor of Modern Literature and Theory in the School of Literature and Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London, and is the author of many books including The English Novel in History (1995), James Joyce (1996), Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism (2000) and The Book of Skin (Reaktion, 2004).

'In Fly, Steven Connor undertakes the monumental task of acquainting a prejudiced public with the spectacular diversity of Diptera. The book is a tour de force of all manner of flies through both scientific and cultural lenses ... The illustrations are an unremitting delight the author has done a fantastic job of hunting down images ... Fly is a joy to read.' - Science 'Fly is a fascinating little volume, informative because of the imaginative breadth of material used to reflect mankind's attitude to the flies that have shared our lives for millennia ... the text is interspersed with fascinating illustrations ... This is a compact work of scholarship, well researched and well referenced, both from entomological and literary standpoints. I commend it to any reader whose view is broader than a microscope tube.' - British Journal of Entomology and Natural History '... a very interesting read ... highly recommended.' - European Journal of Entomology