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The letters in this volume cover two of the most momentous years in Darwin's life. They detail the various stages in the preparation of what was to become one of the world's most famous works: Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, published by John Murray in November 1859.
The correspondence in this volume reveals the two sides of Darwin's life in a new intensity. It opens with a family tragedy in the death of Darwin's oldest and best loved daughter, Anne, and goes on to show how Darwin sought relief from his loss through work.
This volume covers the first years of Darwin's study of the structure and systematics of barnacles: work that involved a worldwide search for specimens, detailed microscopic investigations, a consideration of the theoretical assumptions underlying classification schemes, and the solution of practical problems of zoological nomenclature. Darwin's convictions about the nature and origin of species influenced his observations and conclusions and provided insights that led to some remarkable discoveries. Throughout this period Darwin also maintained his involvement in major geological debates, as shown by important exchanges with Charles Lyell, Robert Chambers, James Dwight Dana, Bernhard Studer, and others. The letters to Darwin include Joseph Dalton Hooker's descriptions of his dramatic and frequently dangerous travels through previously closed regions of Sikkim and Tibet.
This volume inaugurates a complete edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. For the first time full authoritative texts of Darwin's letters are available, edited according to modern textual editorial principles and practice. The first volume of the edition contains the letters of the years 1821-1836.
This volume covers the culmination of Darwin's work on species. From early 1856, when he was persuaded to publish an account of his heterodox theories, through 1857, Darwin's letters document the labour involved in composing his 'big species book', his zest for research, and his unflagging determination to succeed.
Volume 14 contains letters for 1866, a year marked by the deaths of two of Darwin's sisters, when Darwin submitted the manuscript of Variation under Domestication to his publisher, and began thinking about a work dealing specifically with the controversial subject of human evolution.
Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species was just an abstract of the manuscript that he had originally intended to publish as the formal presentation of his views on evolution. Natural Selection n here available for the first time in printed form n was his original long manuscript work and contains more examples and illustrations of his argument.
The Autobiographies of Charles Darwin (1809-82) provide a fascinating glimpse into the mind of one of the world's intellectual giants. They begin with engaging memories of his childhood and youth and of his burgeoning scientific curiosity and love of the natural world, which led to him joining the expedition on the Beagle. Darwin follows this with survey of his career and ends with a reckoning of his life's work. Interspersed with these recollections are fascinating portraits - from his devoted wife Emma and his talented father, both bullying and kind, to the leading figures of the Victorian scientific world he counted among his friends, including Lyell and Huxley. Honest and illuminating, these memoirs reveal a man who was isolated by his controversial beliefs and whose towering achievements were attained by a life-long passion for the discoveries of science.
1862 was a very productive year for Darwin. This was not only the case in his published output, but more particularly in the extent and breadth of the botanical experiments he carried out. The effects of Darwin's ill-health and serious illness in two of his children are also recorded.
Volume 9 reveals Darwin carefully monitoring the response to the Origin of Species. Darwin plunged into detailed studies of insectivorous plants and orchid pollination. The letters in Volume 9 provide another indispensable collection for those interested in Darwin's life, work and world.
This is the third volume of the complete edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. For the first time full authoritative texts of Darwin's letters are available, edited according to modern textual editorial principles and practice. The letters in this volume were written during the years 1844-6.
This is the second volume of the complete edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. For the first time full authoritative texts of Darwin''s letters are available, edited according to modern textual editorial principles and practice. The letters in this volume were written during the seven years following Darwin''s return to England from the Beagle voyage. It was a period of extraordinary activity and productivity in which he became recognised as a naturalist of outstanding ability, as an author and editor, and as a professional man with official responsibilities in several scientific organisations. During these years he published two books and fifteen papers and also organised and superintended the publication of the Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle, for which he described the locations of the fossils and the habitats and behaviour of the living species he had collected. Busy as he was with scientific activities, Darwin found time to re-establish family ties and friendships, and to make new friends among the naturalists with whom his work brought him into close contact. In November 1838, two years after his return Darwin became engaged to his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, whom he subsequently married.
A fascinating record of one of the most famous journeys ever made, providing an accurate historical document as well as an evocative travelogue that conveys Charles Darwin's personal account of the voyage with freshness and immediacy.
Hailed as "superior" by Nature, this landmark volume is available in a collectible, boxed edition.
This exciting anniversary edition has a new introduction and scholarly references by William Bynum, and the cover design is by Damien Hirst. It replaces our existing 1968 edition. The Origin of Species is one of the most important and influential books of its time and remains one of the most significant contributions to philosophical and scientific thought. The theories Darwin sets out here had an immediate and profound impact on the literature and philosophical thought of his contemporaries, and continue to provoke thought and debate today. Written for the general public of the 1850's, The Origin of Species laid out an evolutionary view of the world which challenged contemporary beliefs about divine providence and the fixity of species. He also set forth the results of his pioneering work on the interdependence of species: the ecology of animals and plants.
Volume 13 contains letters for 1865, when Darwin published his long paper on climbing plants and continued working on his book, The Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication. Also included are over 100 letters discovered or redated since the series began publication, including some written when Darwin was 12.
Illuminates the period when Darwin, despite continuing illness, was carrying out botanical experiments and working on his book, The Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication. The volume also sheds light on the worldwide reception of Darwin's theory, and on the continuing controversy in Britain.
This volume is dominated by the response to the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. The volume presents a wealth of detailed information, revealing how the Victorians coped with a theory that would revolutionise thinking about the organic world and human ancestry.
This journal takes the reader from the coasts and interiors of South America to the South Sea Islands. It displays Darwin's speculative mind at work, posing searching questions about the complex relations between the Earth's structure, animal forms, anthropology and the origins of life itself.
Published in 1872, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was a book at the very heart of Darwin's research interests - a central pillar of his 'human' series. This book engaged some of the hardest questions in the evolution debate, and it showed the ever-cautious Darwin at his boldest. If Darwin had one goal with Expression, it was to demonstrate the power of his theories for explaining the origin of our most cherished human qualities: morality and intellect. As Darwin explained, "e;He who admits, on general grounds, that the structure and habits of all animals have been gradually evolved, will look at the whole subject of Expression in a new and interesting light."e;
In the current resurgence of interest in the biological basis of animal behavior and social organization, the ideas and questions pursued by Charles Darwin remain fresh and insightful. This is especially true of The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Darwin's second most important work. This edition is a facsimile reprint of the first printing of the first edition (1871), not previously available in paperback. The work is divided into two parts. Part One marshals behavioral and morphological evidence to argue that humans evolved from other animals. Darwin shoes that human mental and emotional capacities, far from making human beings unique, are evidence of an animal origin and evolutionary development. Part Two is an extended discussion of the differences between the sexes of many species and how they arose as a result of selection. Here Darwin lays the foundation for much contemporary research by arguing that many characteristics of animals have evolved not in response to the selective pressures exerted by their physical and biological environment, but rather to confer an advantage in sexual competition. These two themes are drawn together in two final chapters on the role of sexual selection in humans. In their Introduction, Professors Bonner and May discuss the place of The Descent in its own time and relation to current work in biology and other disciplines.
With an Introduction by Jeff Wallace.'A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die...'.Darwin's theory of natural selection issued a profound challenge to orthodox thought and belief: no being or species has been specifically created; all are locked into a pitiless struggle for existence, with extinction looming for those not fitted for the task.Yet The Origin of Species (1859) is also a humane and inspirational vision of ecological interrelatedness, revealing the complex mutual interdependencies between animal and plant life, climate and physical environment, and - by implication - within the human world.Written for the general reader, in a style which combines the rigour of science with the subtlety of literature, The Origin of Species remains one of the founding documents of the modern age.
Charles Darwin's book about his grandfather, The Life of Erasmus Darwin, is curiously fascinating. Before publication in 1879, it was shortened by 16%, with several of the cuts directed at its most provocative parts. The cutter, with Charles's permission, was his daughter Henrietta - an example of the strong hidden hand of meek-seeming Victorian women. Originally published in 2003, this first unabridged edition, edited by Desmond King-Hele, includes all that Charles originally intended, the cuts being restored and printed in italics. Erasmus Darwin was one of the leading intellectuals of the eighteenth century. He was a respected physician, a well-known poet, a keen mechanical inventor, and a founding member of the influential Lunar Society. He also possessed an amazing insight into the many branches of physical and biological science. Most notably, he adopted what we now call biological evolution as his theory of life, 65 years prior to Charles Darwin's Origin of Species.
This, the most interesting and helpful edition of Charles Darwin's major work, is now available in an inexpensive paperback edition. It is written with a clarity, forcefulness, and conciseness not found in any subsequent revision. For modern reading and for reference, it is the standard edition.
This set of notes, the majority of which have never been published before, records Darwin's painstakingly accurate and analytical observations of the animals and plants that he encountered during the voyage of the Beagle and provide a valuable insight into the intellectual development of one of our most influential scientists.
When HMS Beagle sailed out of Devonport on 27 December 1831, Charles Darwin was twenty-two and setting off on the voyage of a lifetime. His journal, here reprinted in a shortened form, shows a naturalist making patient observations concerning geology, natural history, people, places and events. Volcanoes in the Galapagos, the Gossamer spider of Patagonia and the Australasian coral reefs all are to be found in these extraordinary writings. The insights made here were to set in motion the intellectual currents that led to the most controversial book of the Victorian age: The Origin of Species.
Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species, in which he writes of his theories of evolution by natural selection, is one of the most important works of scientific study ever published.
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