Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1
By Darwin, Charles
Classic work by Darwin, Charles.
Table of Contents
PREFACE In choosing letters for publication I have been largely guided by the wish to illustrate my father's personal character. But his life was so essentially one of work, that ...
The earliest records of the family show the Darwins to have been substantial yeomen residing on the northern borders of Lincolnshire, close to Yorkshire. The name is now very unusu...
[My father's autobiographical recollections, given in the present chapter, were written for his children,--and written without any thought that they would ever be published. To man...
It is my wish in the present chapter to give some idea of my father's everyday life. It has seemed to me that I might carry out this object in the form of a rough sketch of a day's...
[My father's Cambridge life comprises the time between the Lent Term, 1828, when he came up as a Freshman, and the end of the May Term, 1831, when he took his degree and left the U...
[In a letter addressed to Captain Fitz-Roy, before the "Beagle" sailed, my father wrote, "What a glorious day the 4th of November (The "Beagle" did not however make her final and s...
"There is a natural good-humoured energy in his letters just like himself."--From a letter of Dr. R.W. Darwin's to Prof. Henslow. [The object of the "Beagle" voyage is briefly des...
1836-1842. [The period illustrated by the following letters includes the years between my father's return from the voyage of the "Beagle" and his settling at Down. It is marked by...
[The history of this part of my father's life may justly include some mention of his religious views. For although, as he points out, he did not give continuous systematic thought ...
1842-1854. "My life goes on like clockwork, and I am fixed on the spot where I shall end it." Letter to Captain Fitz-Roy, October, 1846. [With the view of giving in the followin...
of the difficulty." Professor Geikie continues (page 21): "He is one of the earliest writers to recognize the magnitude of the denudation to which even recent geological accumulati...
[The growth of the 'Origin of Species' has been briefly described in my father's words (above). The letters given in the present and following chapters will illustrate and amplify ...
corporeal structures...are so wonderful as to justify the rejection prima facie of our theory." Under this heading comes the discussion of the eye, which in the 'Origin' finds its ...
of such intermediate forms." This includes a geological discussion, and corresponds to parts of Chapters VI. and IX. of the 'Origin.'...
Sketch, which we saw in its first rough form in the Note Book of 1837, closely resembles the final sentence of the 'Origin,' much of it being identical. The 'Origin' is not divided...
LETTERS, 1843-1856. [The history of my father's life is told more completely in his correspondence with Sir J.D. Hooker than in any other series of letters; and this is especially...
MAY 1856 TO JUNE 1858. [In the Autobiographical chapter (page 69,) my father wrote:--"Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and I began at once to do ...
Sometimes I am in very good spirits and sometimes very low about it. My own mind is decided on the question of the origin of species; but, good heavens, how little that is worth!.....
JUNE 18, 1858, TO NOVEMBER, 1859. [The letters given in the present chapter tell their story with sufficient clearness, and need but a few words of explanation. Mr. Wallace's Essa...
ON THE RECEPTION OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' To the present generation, that is to say, the people a few years on the hither and thither side of thirty, the name of Charles Darwin...