"For the first time full authoritative texts of Darwin's are made available, edited according to modern textual editorial principles and practice. Letter-writing was of crucial importance to Darwin's work, not only because his poor health isolated him from direct personal communication with his scientific colleagues but also because the nature of his investigations required communication with naturalists in many fields and in all quarters of the globe. Thus the letters are a mine of information about the work in progress of a creative genius who produced an intellectual revolution." --

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. They begin with one written to Darwin at the age of twelve and continue through his school days at Shrewsbury, his two years as a medical student at Edinburgh, the undergraduate years at Cambridge, and his five years of exploration and learning during the voyage of the Beagle. These were Darwin's years of initiation and preparation for a life of science. In the earliest letters Darwin appears already keenly interested in natural history and an avid collector of minerals, plants, marine invertebrates, and insects - especially beetles. The letters of the succeeding years tell the story of the young Darwin's development up to his return to England when, at the age of twenty-seven, he was received as a colleague by Charles Lyell, Adam Sedgwick, and other leading scientists, who had already heard of his discoveries and observations during the Beagle voyage.

"For the first time full authoritative texts of Darwin's are made available, edited according to modern textual editorial principles and practice. Letter-writing was of crucial importance to Darwin's work, not only because his poor health isolated him from direct personal communication with his scientific colleagues but also because the nature of his investigations required communication with naturalists in many fields and in all quarters of the globe. Thus the letters are a mine of information about the work in progress of a creative genius who produced an intellectual revolution." --

Charles Darwin did not deliberately set out to be the “destroyer of mythical beliefs,” some of which, in his early days as a young Christian, he had previously espoused. He was a modest man who liked to avoid controversy of any kind, yet paradoxically, he was to be the cause of the greatest controversy in the history of science and religion. When Darwin embarked on the HMS Beagle in late December 1831, bound for the southern hemisphere, he could not have imagined that the experience would lead him to formulate a theory which would totally revolutionize the way in which we viewed the natural world. He did not come to his conclusions about the origin and evolution of all life on Earth quickly, though, for just as the living organisms to which his theory applied had evolved over millions of years, so his thinking evolved as his own life progressed. How did this thoughtful, methodical scientist come to have such an impact on his time—and on ours? These questions and more are what Andrew Norman seeks to answer in this biography of the author of The Origin of Species. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

A fresh account of Charles Darwin’s rich personal and professional lives, well beyond On the Origin of Species. In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. With this bedrock of biology books, Darwin carved a new origin-story for all life: evolution rather than creation. But this single book is not the whole story. In this new biography, J. David Archibald describes and analyzes Darwin’s prodigious body of work and complex relationships with colleagues, as well as his equally productive home life—he lived with his wife and seven surviving children in the bustling environs of Down House, south of London. There, among his family and friends, Darwin continued to experiment and write many more books on orchids, sex, emotions, and earthworms until his death in 1882, when he was honored with burial at Westminster Abbey. This is a fresh, up-to-date account of the life and work of a most remarkable man.

The letters in Volume 9 provide another indispensable collection for those interested in Darwin's life, work, and world. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

The letters in this volume cover two of the most momentous years in Darwin's life. Begun in 1856 and the fruit of twenty years of study and reflection, Darwin's manuscript on the species question was a little more than half finished, and at least two years from publication, when in June 1858 Darwin unexpectedly received a letter and a manuscript from Alfred Russel Wallace indicating that he too had independently formulated a theory of natural selection. The letters 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. They reveal the first impressions of Darwin's book given by his most trusted confidants, and they relate Darwin's anxious response to the early reception of his theory by friends, family members, and prominent naturalists. This volume provides the capstone to Darwin's remarkable efforts for more than two decades to solve one of nature's greatest riddles - the origin of species.