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The next day, the gendarmes took the boy to a hospice in a nearby town. From there, writes the historian and literary scholar Roger Shattuck, his path took this "prisoner without a crime," now called Victor, into the studies and laboratories of revolutionary France, where the boy presented a rare homegrown instance of Rousseau's "noble savage" to the civilized world. Much scholarly and scientific debate surrounded him. Finally, Victor, now famed as the "wild boy of Aveyron," came under the care of a sympathetic young doctor who concluded that Victor was in fact an abandoned deaf-mute, intelligent but forlorn, who had somehow been able to survive on his own. Dismissed in a contemporary encyclopedia as "half wild" and "incapable of learning to speak in spite of all efforts to teach him," Victor was eventually forgotten. "A state pension kept him alive, like an animal in a zoo," writes Shattuck, "and when he died no one noticed." Scientific debate about his condition was renewed from time to time, however, and the story of the wild boy was influential in the development of several theories of language learning and human evolution. Shattuck's slender narrative is a fine work of scholarly detection, yielding an instructive episode in the history of science. --Gregory McNamee
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Book Description Condition: Good. Your purchase helps support Sri Lankan Children's Charity 'The Rainbow Centre'. Ex-library, so some stamps and wear, but in good overall condition. Our donations to The Rainbow Centre have helped provide an education and a safe haven to hundreds of children who live in appalling conditions. Seller Inventory # Z1-Q-008-03403
Book Description Condition: Very Good. Book is in Used-VeryGood condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain very limited notes and highlighting. 1.74. Seller Inventory # 0436458756-2-3
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Spotting to edge of block quite heavy, but internally all is clean and bright for this fascinating account. Grey cloth lightly faded to extremities, with bright gilt tilting to spine. VG unclipped d/j, lightly worn to edges, a little faded to spine with minor marking to rear. 8vo. ix, 220pp. Seller Inventory # 104674
Book Description Black Cloth. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st ed. xi+220, 6 plates ex-pagination, ill.endpapers; virtually pristine copy in similar jacket. (will add protective sleeve when ordered). Note: quoted shipping rates are calculated for 500-700 gram net weight, cost will be modified up or down as appropriate outside this range. Size: 14.5 Cm x 21.5 Cm. Seller Inventory # 010325
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Acceptable. Ex-Library. Hardback with dust cover. Well read copy with some spine wear but still very useable. Quick dispatch from UK seller. Seller Inventory # mon0000113065