Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters

[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...

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 da...

The beginning of the year 1861 saw my father engaged on the 3rd edition (2000 copies) of the _Origin_, which was largely corrected and added to, and was published in April, 1861.

... It is perfectly true that I owe nearly all the corrections to you, and several verbal ones to you and others; I am heartily glad you approve of them, as yet only two things...

Some idea of the general course of my father's health may have been gathered from the letters given in the preceding pages. The subject of health appears more prominently than i...

MY DEAR LYELL--Some year or so ago you recommended me to read a paper by Wallace in the _Annals_,[147] which had interested you, and as I was writing to him, I knew this would p...

My father's Cambridge life comprises the time between the Lent Term, 1828, when he came up to Christ's College as a Freshman, and the end of the May Term, 1831, when he took his...

The object of the _Beagle_ voyage is briefly described in my father's _Journal of Researches_, p. 1, as being "to complete the Survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, commence...

The botanical work which my father accomplished by the guidance of the light cast on the study of natural history by his own work on evolution remains to be noticed. In a letter...

Certain letters which, chronologically considered, belong to the period 1845-54 have been utilised in a later chapter where the growth of the _Origin of Species_ is described. I...

In 1874 a second edition of his _Coral Reefs_ was published, which need not specially concern us. It was not until some time afterwards that the criticisms of my father's theory...

The history of the years 1843-1858 is here related in an extremely abbreviated fashion. It was a period of minute labour on a variety of subjects, and the letters accordingly ab...

My father in his published works was reticent on the matter of religion, and what he has left on the subject was not written with a view to publication.[44]

My father mentions in his _Autobiography_ (p. 45) that he was led to take up the subject of climbing plants by reading Dr. Gray's paper, "Note on the Coiling of the Tendrils of...

As to the first four chapters, I agree thoroughly and fully with all the principles laid down in them. I think you have demonstrated a true cause for the production of species,...

The period illustrated in the present chapter includes the years between Darwin's return from the voyage of the _Beagle_ and his settling at Down. It is marked by the gradual ap...

To give an account of the development of the chief work of my father's life--the _Origin of Species_, it will be necessary to return to an earlier date, and to weave into the st...

"Remember that your verdict will probably have more influence than my book in deciding whether such views as I hold will be admitted or rejected at present; in the future I cann...

Charles Robert Darwin was the second son of Dr. Robert Waring Darwin, of Shrewsbury, where he was born on February 12, 1809. Dr. Darwin was a son of Erasmus Darwin, sometimes de...

order that the Evolutionary chapters which follow may tell a continuous story. In the same way the Botanical Work which occupied so much of my father's time during the latter pa...