Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1

[With the view of giving in the following chapters a connected account of the growth of the 'Origin of Species,' I have taken the more important letters bearing on that subject...

[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...

[The letters given in the present chapter tell their story with sufficient clearness, and need but a few words of explanation. Mr. Wallace's Essay, referred to in the first lett...

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 object of the "Beagle" voyage is briefly described in my father's 'Journal of Researches,' page 1, as being "to complete the Survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, comme...

[The history of my father's life is told more completely in his correspondence with Sir J.D. Hooker than in any other series of letters; and this is especially true of the histo...

[In the Autobiographical chapter (page 69,) my father wrote:--"Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and I began at once to do so on a scale three o...

[The period illustrated by the following letters includes the years between my father's return from the voyage of the "Beagle" and his settling at Down. It is marked by the grad...

[In a letter addressed to Captain Fitz-Roy, before the "Beagle" sailed, my father wrote, "What a glorious day the 4th of November (The "Beagle" did not however make her final an...

To the present generation, that is to say, the people a few years on the hither and thither side of thirty, the name of Charles Darwin stands alongside of those of Isaac Newton...

The earliest records of the family show the Darwins to have been substantial yeomen residing on the northern borders of Lincolnshire, close to Yorkshire. The name is now very un...

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

[The history of this part of my father's life may justly include some mention of his religious views. For although, as he points out, he did not give continuous systematic thoug...

[The growth of the 'Origin of Species' has been briefly described in my father's words (above). The letters given in the present and following chapters will illustrate and ampli...

Sketch, which we saw in its first rough form in the Note Book of 1837, closely resembles the final sentence of the 'Origin,' much of it being identical. The 'Origin' is not divi...

In choosing letters for publication I have been largely guided by the wish to illustrate my father's personal character. But his life was so essentially one of work, that a hist...