The Correspondence of Charles Darwin
The Correspondence of Charles Darwin
Frederick Burkhardt, American Council of Learned Societies
James A. Secord, University of Cambridge
The Editors of the Darwin Correspondence Project, University of Cambridge
£111.00
GBPThis volume is part of the definitive edition of letters written by and to Charles Darwin, the most celebrated naturalist of the nineteenth century. Notes and appendixes put these fascinating and wide-ranging letters in context, making the letters accessible to both scholars and general readers. Darwin depended on correspondence to collect data from all over the world, and to discuss his emerging ideas with scientific colleagues, many of whom he never met in person. The letters are published chronologically: volume 26 includes letters from 1878, the year in which Darwin with his son Francis carried out experiments on plant movement and bloom on plants. Francis spent the summer at a botanical research institute in Germany; and father and son exchanged many detailed letters about his work. Meanwhile, Darwin tried to secure government support for attempts by one of his Irish correspondents to breed a blight-resistant potato.
- The narrative introduction provides a compact but highly readable account of Darwin's life in 1878
- Complete transcriptions of more than 580 letters Darwin wrote and received in the year 1878 are of immense value to researchers across a range of disciplines, providing for the first time primary materials on this period of Darwin's life and work
- Clear and concise explanatory notes make the material accessible to both scholars and general readers
- A biographical register provides brief biographical notes for people mentioned in the letters
Reviews & endorsements
'In the letters of a single year, both to and from Darwin, edited with consummate scholarship and a nice sense of balance in the footnotes, which illuminate without overwhelming the text, the small points build into a picture. Darwin himself appears in close-up from the intimate angles of everday life, while through the correspondence the changing temper of the times reverberates. … the large questions are never far away. Evolution itself and the working out of evolutionary theory pervade the letters as they pervaded the age.' Rosemary Hill, London Review of Books
'The context of each letter is outlined with fine footnotes, there is a brief biography of all correspondents and a thorough, easily searchable index. Pleasure guaranteed for all with an interest in the history of science.' Paul Ashton, The Biologist
Product details
October 2018Hardback
9781108475402
814 pages
241 × 163 × 48 mm
1.36kg
Available
Table of Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of letters
- Introduction
- Acknowledgments
- List of provenances
- Note on editorial policy
- Darwin/Wedgwood genealogy
- Abbreviations and symbols
- The correspondence
- Appendix I. Translations
- Appendix II. Chronology
- Appendix III. Diplomas
- Appendix IV. Reviews of Forms of flowers
- Manuscript alterations and comments
- Biographical register and index to correspondents
- Bibliography
- Notes on manuscript sources
- Index.
