To many of us, Darwin’s name is synonymous with his theory of evolution by natural selection. But even before the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, he was publicly known through his popular book about the voyage of the Beagle, and he was esteemed by scientific colleagues for his work in geology and zoology. Rather than being the culmination of his career, the Origin was the point of departure for Darwin’s important works on variation, human heredity, and the evolution of emotions. His long intellectual life is worth studying both as a window into the wider world of the nineteenth century and for its lasting significance in science, culture, and the discussion of religion.
On 20 May 1865, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary that John Chapman, a prominent London publisher who had studied medicine in London and Paris in the early 1840s, visited Down to consult with Darwin about his ill health. In 1863 Chapman started to treat epilepsy with ice and developed a theory of ‘neuro-dynamic medicine’ according to which many diseases were treatable through applications of heat or cold to the spine over long periods.
Darwin was a photography enthusiast. This is evident not only in his use of photography for the study of Expression and Emotions in Man and Animal, but can be witnessed in his many photographic portraits and in the extensive portrait correspondence that Darwin undertook throughout his lifetime. His close friend and botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker would come to call Darwin’s epistolary exchange of photographic images as his “carte correspondence”.
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.
Follow the links to resources about the books and papers, mostly scientific, that Darwin read as student at Edinburgh, during the Beagle voyage, and later in his life.
Darwin and his family also read works of fiction by Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and Jane Austen, among others.
From the long letters exchanged with his sisters during the Beagle voyage, through correspondence about his marriage to his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, the births—and deaths—of their children, to the contributions of his sons and daughters to his scientific work, Darwin’s letters show how important his family was to him. Once settled at Down House in Kent, where he and Emma moved in 1842, he worked constantly surrounded by family—and servants. His entire household, wife, children, and servants, contributed in various ways to his working life.
Was joined by Colonel Burgh Leighton when walking in the quarry. Plans to make caves next summer to store "warlike instruments" and "relicks". Sketches a design for a signalling device. May go with his father to visit the Earl of Powys at Walcot; visited Mrs and Miss Reynolds and William Pemberton Cludde.
Saw a mineral salesman, but he had nothing CD does not already have.
EAD has a piece of petrified sponge and some curious coal that John Price pulled out of his fire.
Griffith’s Animal kingdom [Griffith, Edward, et al. 1827–35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization, by the Baron Cuvier, … with additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed. 16 vols. London] just being published. He is sure CD would like it.
To many of us, Darwin’s name is synonymous with his theory of evolution by natural selection. But even before the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, he was publicly known through his popular book about the voyage of the Beagle, and he was esteemed by scientific colleagues for his work in geology and zoology. Rather than being the culmination of his career, the Origin was the point of departure for Darwin’s important works on variation, human heredity, and the evolution of emotions. His long intellectual life is worth studying both as a window into the wider world of the nineteenth century and for its lasting significance in science, culture, and the discussion of religion.