Olson D.W. Celestial Sleuth: Using Astronomy to Solve Mysteries in Art, History and Literature

Springer, 2014. - 355 pp.
This work blurs the line between the hard science of forensic astronomy and the humanities. A longtime connoisseur of art and literature, Donald Olson was approached in 1987 with a proposition that would help him merge the arts with his expertise in astronomy. An English professor asked for his help in interpreting astronomical references in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Shortly afterward, a history professor had a similar request, this time looking at the impact of moonlight and the tides on the amphibious invasion at the Battle of Tarawa during World War II. He has since then gone on to be published in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Sky and Telescope, and Smithsonian magazine, which called Olson the leading practitioner of forensic astronomy.
The chapters are arranged in three parts. Part I includes projects applying astronomy to art. This part is organized by artist and includes analysis of night-sky paintings by Claude Monet, J. M. W. Turner, Vincent van Gogh, and Edvard Munch, along with moonrise photographs by Ansel Adams.
Part II looks at historical events influenced by astronomy, usually involving the effects of moonlight or ocean tides. Sometimes both moonlight and tides are involved, as on the night of the Boston Tea Party, the night of Paul Revere’s ride, the sinking of the Titanic, and the D-Day invasion of Normandy. This part is ordered chronologically, from the time of the first Marathon run in ancient Greece, through American colonial times and the Civil War, and finally to important battles and events of World War II.
Part III analyzes astronomical references in literature, especially in cases where an actual celestial event apparently inspired the literary passage. This part is ordered chronologically and ranges from the skies above the Persia of Omar Khayyam, a supernova that Shakespeare could have witnessed, the moonlight shining on Mary Shelley’s window as she conceived of the idea for Frankenstein, to a spectacular meteor procession observed by Walt Whitman and a meteor that dropped from the sky over James Joyce’s Dublin.