Charles Darwin: The Power of Place / Edition 1

by E. Janet Browne

Overview

In 1858, Charles Darwin was forty-nine years old, a gentleman scientist living quietly at Down House in the Kent countryside. He was not yet a focus of debate; his "big book on species" still lay on his desk as a manuscript. For more than twenty years he had been accumulating material for it, puzzling over the questions that it raised, trying to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion, and wanting to be certain that his startling theory of evolution was correct.

It is at this point that the concluding volume of Janet Browne's magisterial biography opens. Beginning with the extraordinary events that finally forced the Origin of Species into print, we come to the years of fame and controversy. Here, Browne does dramatic justice to all aspects of the Darwinian revolution, from a fascinating examination of the Victorian publishing scene to a survey of the debates between scientists and churchmen over evolutionary theory. At the same time, she presents a wonderfully sympathetic and authoritative picture of Darwin himself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691114392
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	09/15/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	600
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.33(d)

About the Author

Janet Browne is Professor in the History of Biology at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London and is currently President of the British Society for the History of Science. She is the author of several books, including Charles Darwin: Voyaging (Princeton), and has served as Associate Editor of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin.

Table of Contents

Part One: AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1: Stormy Waters 3
CHAPTER 2: "My Abominable Volume" 43
CHAPTER 3: Publish and Be Damned 82
CHAPTER 4: Four Musketeers 126

Part Two: EXPERIMENTER
CHAPTER 5: Eyes Among the Leaves 165
CHAPTER 6: Battle of the Books 196
CHAPTER 7: Invalid 231
CHAPTER 8: The Burden of Heredity 275

Part Three: CELEBRITY
CHAPTER 9: Son of a Monkey 325
CHAPTER 10: Darwin in the Drawing Room 370
CHAPTER 11: England’s Green and Pleasant Land 407
CHAPTER 12: Home Is the Sailor 446
Notes 499
Bibliography 533
Acknowledgements 569
Index 573

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography

Winner of the 2004 Pfizer Prize, History of Science Society

"This biography is matchless in detail and compass, and one feels an abiding gratitude that Browne was willing to sacrifice so many years of her life to reconstruct Darwin's."—John Tooby, New York Times

"A masterpiece. . . . Brown took on an enormously ambitious project, and only an astonishingly skillful writer and a masterly historian could have pulled it off. She has."—Benjamin Schwarz, Atlantic Monthly

"[A] sprawling, magnificent biography. Integrating the best of current scholarship with her own discoveries, Browne's account is state of the art."—Richard Milner,Scientific American

"Superb. . . . An intimate yet clinical study."—Keith Stuart Thomas,American Scientist

"Soothing, unhurried, and absorbing. . . . Browne has succeeded triumphantly in the biographer's most important task: she has made [Darwin] human."—Jane Ridley, Spectator

From the Publisher

Soothing, unhurried, and absorbing. . . . Browne has succeeded triumphantly in the biographer's most important task: she has made [Darwin] human.

Spectator - Jane Ridley

Superb. . . . An intimate yet clinical study.

American Scientist - Keith Stuart Thomas

[A] sprawling, magnificent biography. Integrating the best of current scholarship with her own discoveries, Browne's account is state of the art.

Scientific American - Richard Milner

A masterpiece. . . . Brown took on an enormously ambitious project, and only an astonishingly skillful writer and a masterly historian could have pulled it off. She has.

Atlantic Monthly - Benjamin Schwarz

This biography is matchless in detail and compass, and one feels an abiding gratitude that Browne was willing to sacrifice so many years of her life to reconstruct Darwin's.

New York Times - John Tooby

Soothing, unhurried, and absorbing. . . . Browne has succeeded triumphantly in the biographer's most important task: she has made [Darwin] human.
— Jane Ridley

Spectator

Superb. . . . An intimate yet clinical study.
— Keith Stuart Thomas

American Scientist

[A] sprawling, magnificent biography. Integrating the best of current scholarship with her own discoveries, Browne's account is state of the art.
— Richard Milner

Scientific American

A masterpiece. . . . Brown took on an enormously ambitious project, and only an astonishingly skillful writer and a masterly historian could have pulled it off. She has.
— Benjamin Schwarz

Atlantic Monthly

This biography is matchless in detail and compass, and one feels an abiding gratitude that Browne was willing to sacrifice so many years of her life to reconstruct Darwin's.
— John Tooby

New York Times