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...

This is the second volume of the complete edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. 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 organizations. During these years he published two books and fifteen papers and he also organized and superintended the publication of th Zoology of...

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...

The correspondence in this volume reveals the two sides of Darwin's life in a new intensity. It opens with a tragedy, the death of Darwin's oldest and best loved daughter, Anne, and goes on to show how Darwin sought relief from his loss through his work, with a single-minded but increasingly weary commitment to the completion of his cirripede monographs. In September 1854, as soon as the final proofs of the last barnacle volume had been returned to the printer, Darwin threw himself into a resumption of his species work. He followed up old ideas by initiating new experiments and establishing a...

The seventh volume of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin covers two of the most momentous years in Darwin's life and in the history of science. Begun in 1856, Darwin's big book on species, later published as Natural Selection (Cambridge University Press, 1974) was a little more than half finished when Darwin unexpectedly received a letter and a manuscript from Alfred Russel Wallace indicating that he too had independently formulated a theory of natural selection. In a letter to his friend, Charles Lyell, Darwin wrote, "So all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed." On...

Volume 8 opens with Darwin eagerly scrutinizing each new review, as one by one all the major media of the day carried notices of the book. To those who express their views privately in letters, Darwin responds patiently and thoughtfully, answering their objections and attempting to guide their fuller understanding of the operation of natural selection. His more personal thoughts emerge in letters to his friends Joseph Dalton Hooker, Charles Lyell, and Thomas Henry Huxley. This volume presents a wealth of detailed information, giving the full range of response to the Origin and revealing how...

The correspondence in this volume continues to reveal the variety of responses to Darwin's species theory in the second year following the publication of The Origin of Species. Darwin also begins to turn to new "evolutionary" projects that illustrate how the theory could be applied to solving important problems in natural history. The letters also yield important new information about contemporary research.