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Autobiographies

Author Charles Darwin

Edited by Michael Neve, Sharon Messenger

Paperback

$15.00 US

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Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Classics

On sale Sep 24, 2002 | 128 Pages | 9780140433906

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A glimpse into the mind of one of the world's intellectual giants

The Autobiographies of Charles Darwin (1809-82) provide a fascinating glimpse into the mind and experiences of one of the world's intellectual giants. They begin with engaging memories of his childhood and youth and of his burgeoning scientific curiosity and love of the natural world, which led to him joining the expedition on the Beagle. Darwin follows this with survey of his career and ends with a reckoning of his life's work. Interspersed with these recollections are fascinating portraits - from his devoted wife Emma and his talented father, both bullying and kind, to the leading figures of the Victorian scientific world he counted among his friends, including Lyell and Huxley. Honest and illuminating, these memoirs reveal a man who was isolated by his controversial beliefs and whose towering achievements were attained by a life-long passion for the discoveries of science.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Charles Robert Darwin was born in 1809 in Shrewsbury, England, to a wealthy intellectual family, his grandfather being the famous physician Erasmus Darwin. At Cambridge University he formed a friendship with J. S. Henslow, a professor of botany, and that association, along with his enthusiasm for collecting beetles, led to “a burning zeal,” as he wrote in his Autobiography, for the natural sciences. When Henslow obtained for him the post of naturalist on H.M.S. Beagle, the course of his life was fixed. The five-year-long voyage to the Southern Hemisphere between 1831 and 1836 would lay the foundation for his ideas about evolution and natural selection. Upon his return Darwin lived in London before retiring to his residence at Down, a secluded village in Kent. For the next forty years he conducted his research there and wrote the works that would change human understanding forever. Knowing of the resistance from the orthodox scientific and religious communities, Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859 only when another naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, independently reached the same conclusions. His other works include The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and Recollections of My Mind and Character, also titled Autobiography (1887). Charles Darwin’s Diary of the Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle was published posthumously in 1933. Darwin died in 1882; he is buried in Westminster Abbey. View titles by Charles Darwin

Autobiographies
" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" border="0"Acknowledgments
Chronology
Introduction
Further Reading
Note on the Texts

An autobiographical fragment
1876 May 31 - Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character
Cambridge, 1828-1831
Voyage of the Beagle: from Dec. 27, 1831 to Oct. 2, 1836
From my return to England Oct. 2 1836 to my marriage Jan. 29 1839
Religious Belief
From my marriage, Jan. 29 1839, and residence in Upper Gower St. to our leaving London and settling at Down, Sep. 14 1842
Residence at Down from Sep. 14 1842 to the present time 1876
My Several Publications
Bibliographical Register