Evolution: Selected Letters of Charles Darwin 1860-1870 (Selected Letters of C. Darwin) | 
 enlarge | Creators: Frederick Burkhardt, Alison M. Pearn, Samantha Evans
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $28.00
Buy New: $11.70
You Save: $16.30 (58%)
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Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 80722
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 0521874122
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.82092
EAN: 9780521874120
ASIN: 0521874122
Publication Date: June 9, 2008
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Product Description
Charles Darwin is a towering figure in the history of science, who changed the direction of modern thought by establishing the basis of evolutionary biology. With a Foreword by Sir David Attenborough, this is a fascinating insight into Darwin's life as he first directly addressed the issues of humanity's place in nature, and the consequences of his ideas for religious belief. Incorporating previously unpublished material, this volume includes letters written by Darwin, and also those written to him by friends and scientific colleagues world-wide, by critics who tried to stamp out his ideas, and admirers who helped them to spread. They take up the story of Darwin's life in 1860, in the immediate aftermath of the publication of On the Origin of Species, and carry it through one of the most intense and productive decades of his career, to the eve of publication of Descent of Man in 1871.
Book Description
A unique piece of publishing containing letters written to and by Darwin, charting his struggle to have his theories accepted. With a Foreword by Sir David Attenborough and incorporating previously unpublished material, readers experience a first-hand insight into some of the most intense and productive years of Darwin's life.
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| Customer Reviews:
Darwin's 200th Birthday Celebration! October 21, 2008
David N. Campbell (Darwin Center-Pittsburgh, PA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
These selected letters document that time after the publication of Origin of Species and reveal much about Darwin that few people know and understand.There are several letters to Asa Gray in America while the Civil War was raging-"I have begun to think whether it would not be well for the peace of the world, if you were to split up into two or three nations. " He was strongly opposed to slavery. He considered whether it would be better for a man of science to not have a wife and children for he then,"might work away like a Trojan." Here is an indication of the vast correspondence he carried on with sources of information from all over the world and also how much of that time he was ill, so much so that he spent whole days in bed and could get no work done. These letters are essential to knowing the man who changed our lives forever.
A Commemorative Collection of Darwin Letters August 22, 2008
Ronald H. Clark (WASHINGTON, DC USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
2009 is the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species." To mark these important dates, Cambridge University Press is publishing three new or augmented collections of Darwin letters drawn from the fantastic Darwin Correspondence Project's resources. The first or "Origins" collection (covering 1822-1859) has long been in print (I reviewed it a while ago on Amazon), but this new edition has some additional childhood Darwin letters. The second is this volume which covers the period of 1860-1870. The final or "Beagle Letters" is edited by the wonderful Janet Browne, the premier biographer of CD. Obviously, since Darwin supposedly had 2,000 correspondents, these volumes can only reprint a few morsels from the extensive collection held at the Darwin Correspondence Project which recently put 5,000 CD letters on line covering the period just up to 1865. So, the skill of the editors in selecting the best letters is paramount. br / br /I found that letters once again are the best way to gain insight into an individual for reasons I have expressed in other reviews (Henry Adams, e.g.). These letters cover the decade after publication of the "Origin" and the correspondence is flying hot and heavy. Darwin emerges from these letters as even more remarkable than we might think. Despite continuing illness, he labors away. He apparently is interested in anything and everything having to do with life and the earth: plants; animals; age of the planet; expressions; do chimps have hair on the their backs; how do insects attract mates, and on and on it goes. He is uniformly patient in responding to hostile (and foolish) letters. He writes extensively to his network of supporters (Hooker and Huxley in particular) as they face continuing opposition to his theories in public meetings, periodicals and books. He seems never to have lost his temper and continues to write, write and write ("Variations" and the "Descent" for example). One sees, as Browne points out in her biography, how critical the superb British postal service was to Darwin who seldom ventured outside his home in Kent. br / br /The editors' selection of letters is almost flawless. The book is printed on outstanding glossy paper, and contains some helpful annotations (though probably more would have been helpful); an extremely valuable "Biographical register" with mini-biographies of most of the individuals whose letters we are reading or whom are referenced in the letters; a "Bibliography of biographical sources"; and an exhaustive index. I can think of no commemoration of CD that would have pleased him more than these fine volumes, edited and produced with the utmost care and scholarship.
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