For nearly fifty years successive teams of researchers on both sides of the Atlantic have been working to track down all surviving letters written by or to Charles Darwin, research their content, and publish the complete texts. The thirtieth and final print volume, covering the last four months of Darwin's life, will be published in early 2023 and all the letter texts - more than 15000 between 1822 and 1882 - are now published online. Discover more about the final months of Darwin's life in our Life and Letters series, 1882: Nothing too great or too small. See a full list of letters from 1882.
In October 1881, Darwin published his last book, The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms: with observations on their habits. A slim volume on a subject that many people could understand and on which they had their own opinions, it went through several reprints within a year. The idea of the powerful effects brought about by apparently insignificant creatures caught the public imagination. Read more about Darwin's life in 1881 and see a full list of letters.
The scientific results of the Beagle voyage still dominated Darwin's working life, but he broadened his continuing investigations into the nature and origin of species. Far from being a recluse, Darwin was at the heart of British scientific society, travelling often to London and elsewhere to attend meetings and confer with colleagues, including the man who was to become his closest friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker. Down House was altered and extended to accommodate Darwin's growing family; and, with his father's advice, Darwin began a series of judicious financial investments to ensure a comfortable future for all those under his care.
On 11 November 1838 Darwin wrote in his journal 'The day of days!'. He had proposed to his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, and been accepted; they were married on 29 January 1839. Darwin appears to have written these two notes weighing up the pros and cons of marriage in the months immediately preceding his engagement.
From a quiet rural existence at Down in Kent, filled with steady work on his 'big book' on the transmutation of species, Darwin was jolted into action in 1858 by the arrival of an unexpected letter (no longer extant) from Alfred Russel Wallace outlining a remarkably similar mechanism for species change. This letter led to the first announcement of Darwin's and Wallace's respective theories of organic change at the Linnean Society of London in July 1858 and prompted the composition and publication, in November 1859, of Darwin's major treatise On the origin of species by means of natural selection.
Read and search the full texts of more than 15,000 of Charles Darwin's letters. Discover complete transcripts of all known letters Darwin wrote and received.
Darwin for Schools
Discover our new and improved schools resources for 11-14 year olds.
