Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Stephen Jay Gould
- Introduction
- Note on the Text
- Acknowledgments
- Symbols and Abbreviations
- Prologue
- Shrewsbury
- Edinburgh
- Cambridge
- The Offer
- The Voyage: South America – East Coast
- The Voyage: South America – West Coast
- Homeward Bound
- 1837
- 1838
- 1839–1843
- 1844
- 1845–1846
- 1847
- 1848
- 1849
- 1850
- 1851
- 1852–1854
- 1855
- 1856
- 1857
- 1858
- 1859
- Biographical Register
- Bibliography of Biographical Sources
- Bibliographical Note
- Further Reading
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Stephen Jay Gould
- Introduction
- Note on the Text
- Acknowledgments
- Symbols and Abbreviations
- Prologue
- Shrewsbury
- Edinburgh
- Cambridge
- The Offer
- The Voyage: South America – East Coast
- The Voyage: South America – West Coast
- Homeward Bound
- 1837
- 1838
- 1839–1843
- 1844
- 1845–1846
- 1847
- 1848
- 1849
- 1850
- 1851
- 1852–1854
- 1855
- 1856
- 1857
- 1858
- 1859
- Biographical Register
- Bibliography of Biographical Sources
- Bibliographical Note
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
The letters in this volume span the years from 1822, when Darwin was schoolboy in Shrewsbury, to the end of 1859, when the Origin of species was published. The early letters portray Darwin as an engaging and inventive twelve-year-old in the midst of his family, and then as a lively sixteen-year-old medical student at Edinburgh University. Two years after going up to Edinburgh he abandoned any idea of following his father in becoming a physician and transferred to Cambridge University to prepare for the ministry. His interests as an undergraduate at Cambridge, as at Edinburgh, were clearly outside the established academic curriculum. He became an enthusiastic collector of insects, and a devoted follower of the professor of botany, John Stevens Henslow, who encouraged his interest in natural history, for which no degree was then offered. Soon after Darwin took his BA degree, Henslow recommended him for the post of unoffical naturalist and companion to Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle, which was being prepared for a survey voyage to South America and the Pacific.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- OriginsSelected Letters of Charles Darwin, 1822–1859. Anniversary edition., pp. xxi - xxvPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008