From 1965–1968, I held an Agricultural Research Council Research Fellowship at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Later in 1981, when I was a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge and renewed my contacts with Christ’s College, my friend and colleague David Coombe, a Fellow of Christ’s College, informed me that a collection of letters of Charles Darwin had just been - covered in the Library storeroom, underneath the College. I had always maintained an interest in Charles Darwin, from the early age of thirteen, when I had rst read his books, with I might say some dif culty! This collection was the 155 letters of Charles Darwin to his second cousin William Darwin Fox, which had been given in trust to the College, in 1909, by members of the Fox family at the time of the Darwin Centenary celebrations. I was allowed access to these 155 letters and at that time made my own tr- scriptions. It seemed to me that this was a magni cent account of the lives of two naturalists of the nineteenth century, starting at the time that they were at Christ’s together, in 1828, and going to 1880 when W D Fox died – just two years short of the death of Charles Darwin in 1882. Of course this valuable resource had not gone unnoticed before. Darwin’s son, Francis Darwin had been given the letters in the 1880s, when he was preparing his Life and Letters of Charles Darwin in 3 volumes.

VOLUME I PREFACE LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN. VOLUME I. CHAPTER 1.I. — THE DARWIN FAMILY. CHAPTER 1.II. — AUTOBIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER 1.III. — REMINISCENCES OF MY FATHER'S EVERYDAY LIFE. CHAPTER 1.IV. — CAMBRIDGE LIFE. CHAPTER 1.V. — THE APPOINTMENT TO THE 'BEAGLE.' CHAPTER 1.VI. — THE VOYAGE. CHAPTER 1.VII. — LONDON AND CAMBRIDGE. 1836-1842. CHAPTER 1.VIII. — RELIGION. CHAPTER 1.IX. — LIFE AT DOWN. 1842-1854. CHAPTER 1.X. — THE GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' Chapter I. "On the kind of intermediateness necessary, and the number Chapter II. "The gradual appearance and disappearance of organic Chapter III. "Geographical Distribution." Corresponds to Chapters XI. Chapter IV. "Affinities and Classification of Organic beings." Chapter V. "Unity of Type," Morphology, Embryology. Chapter VI. Rudimentary Organs. These three chapters correspond to Chapter XII. of the 'Origin.' Chapter VII. Recapitulation and Conclusion. The final sentence of the CHAPTER 1.XI. — THE GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' LETTERS, 1843-1856. CHAPTER 1.XII. — THE UNFINISHED BOOK. MAY 1856 TO JUNE 1858. CHAPTER 1. XIII. — THE WRITING OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' JUNE 18, 1858, TO NOVEMBER, 1859. CHAPTER 1.XIV. — BY PROFESSOR HUXLEY. ON THE RECEPTION OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' VOLUME II. CHAPTER 2.I. — THE PUBLICATION OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' OCTOBER 3, 1859, TO DECEMBER 31, 1859. CHAPTER 2.II. — THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES' (continued). 1860. CHAPTER 2.III. — SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. 1861-1862. CHAPTER 2.IV. — THE SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. 'VARIATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS' CHAPTER 2.V. — THE PUBLICATION OF THE 'VARIATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS UNDER DOMESTICATION.' JANUARY 1867, TO JUNE 1868. CHAPTER 2.VI. — WORK ON 'MAN.' 1864-1870. CHAPTER 2.VII. — PUBLICATION OF THE 'DESCENT OF MAN.' WORK ON 'EXPRESSION.' CHAPTER 2.VIII. — MISCELLANEA CHAPTER 2.IX. — MISCELLANEA (continued) CHAPTER 2.X. — FERTILISATION OF FLOWERS. CHAPTER 2.XI. — THE 'EFFECTS OF CROSS- AND SELF-FERTILISATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.' CHAPTER 2.XII. — 'DIFFERENT FORMS OF FLOWERS ON PLANTS OF THE SAME SPECIES.' 1877. CHAPTER 2.XIII. — CLIMBING AND INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. CHAPTER 2.XIV. — THE 'POWER OF MOVEMENT IN PLANTS.' 1880. CHAPTER 2.XV. — MISCELLANEOUS BOTANICAL LETTERS. 1873-1882. CHAPTER 2.XVI. — CONCLUSION.

Imagined correspondence of the author with Charles Darwin.

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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.

This special anniversary edition of Burkhardt's bestselling work, "Origins: Charles Darwin's Letters: A Selection 1825-1859," now includes previously unpublished letters.

A fresh account of Charles Darwin’s rich personal and professional lives, well beyond On the Origin of Species. In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. With this bedrock of biology books, Darwin carved a new origin-story for all life: evolution rather than creation. But this single book is not the whole story. In this new biography, J. David Archibald describes and analyzes Darwin’s prodigious body of work and complex relationships with colleagues, as well as his equally productive home life—he lived with his wife and seven surviving children in the bustling environs of Down House, south of London. There, among his family and friends, Darwin continued to experiment and write many more books on orchids, sex, emotions, and earthworms until his death in 1882, when he was honored with burial at Westminster Abbey. This is a fresh, up-to-date account of the life and work of a most remarkable man.