The Invention of Clouds is the true story of a shy young Quaker, Luke Howard, & his pioneering work to define what had hitherto been random & unknowable structures--clouds. Amateur meteorologist Howard was catapulted to fame in December 1802 when he named the clouds, a defining point in natural history & meteorology. His poetic names & groundbreaking work made him internationally famous, & he became a cult figure for Romantics like Shelley, Keats, & Goethe, who revered his vision of an aerial landscape. Meteorology fast became a respectable science, legitimized by the new elevation of a Linnean classification. Although his work is still the basis of modern meteorology, Howard himself has been overlooked. Hamblyn's concise work, part history of science, part cultural excavation, redresses the balance, & introduces a new audience to the language of the skies.