In this talk I will examine some of the problems that can arise within historicist research in literature and science by looking at one particularly revealing case study: the relationship between the Pre-Raphaelites and science in mid-Victorian England. At the same time, I will argue that historicist research into the relationship of science to the wider culture, and particularly its expression in complex and suggestive art-forms such as poetry, painting, sculpture and architecture, can greatly enrich our understanding of the history of science itself. Pre-Raphaelite art may seem as far removed from Victorian science as any cultural product of its age could be, yet in their earliest writings, particularly in their manifesto periodical, The Germ (1850), the Pre-Raphaelites routinely invoked science as the model for their art. Even so, they left very little record of specific responses to individual scientific ideas, discoveries or texts. We do not even have very good grounds for surmising that the Pre-Raphaelites were well read in science at all. Instead, what we have is the general impression that they have of science which, while it can be correlated with certain ideas current at the time, cannot be traced to specific sources. We do know of biographical links between individual scientists and artists. Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais were friends of Richard Owen; Thomas Woolner was on very good terms with Joseph Hooker; the whole group knew Henry Acland. But again it can be hard to establish how far these friendships directly influenced their own scientific ideologies. One problem, then, is to establish what the Pre-Raphaelites meant by 'science', and why it was so fundamental to their rhetoric. Turning to Pre-Raphaelite painting, sculpture and poetry, the problem becomes still more acute, in that the Pre-Raphaelites very rarely took scientific ideas as their theme directly, or even used imagery drawn from science. Instead, their paintings and poetry were conceived of as scientific studies and experiments in their own right. So once again we are returned to the question of what that meant for the artists themselves. How can a painting or a poem be 'scientific'? What methods, approaches and techniques does this entail? Answering these questions involves moving beyond the usual range and methods of the history of science, both in the sources used and because the Pre-Raphaelites' conception of science was indefinite and did not derive directly from particular scientific philosophies, for all that in individual cases it bears the stamp of Baconism, or Natural Theology, or some other clearly defined position. But if we can answer them then we will also be able to see how science bore on the most influential Victorian aesthetic movement, and gain a much deeper sense of how the different strands of mid-Victorian culture - science, art, literature, and religion too - were interwoven.