To mark the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of the Species, the Society for the History of Natural History has issued a special publication that reproduces facsimiles of papers on Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin published before 2005 (from the Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History and Archives of Natural History) and a reprint of the Sherborn Fund Facsimile No. 3 (1968) of Charles Darwin’s Questions About the Breeding of Animals (1840) with the original introduction by Sir Gavin de Beer.

The book opens with a specially commissioned essay by Professor Duncan M. Porter recounting the Society’s particular contribution to Darwin scholarship.

Published for the Society by Edinburgh University Press.

Price: £27.99.

For more information and to order, please contact Edinburgh University Press.

List of contents

Darwin in the archives: an introduction, D. M. Porter

Part I: Studies of Erasmus Darwin
1. Erasmus Darwin, M.D., F.R.S.: a biographical and iconographical note, J. W. T. Moody
2. Nature, poetry and medicine in late eighteenth century England: a unified perspective of Erasmus Darwin, M. McNeil

Part II: Geological journeys
3. Jigsaw with pieces missing: Charles Darwin with John Price at Bodnant, the walking tour of 1826 and the expeditions of 1827, P. Lucas
4. I coloured a map: Darwin’s attempts at geological mapping in 1831, M. B. Roberts
5. Charles Darwin’s notes on his 1831 geological map of Shrewsbury, S. Herbert & M. B. Roberts
6. Darwin’s dog-leg: the last stage of Darwin’s Welsh field trip of 1831, M. B. Roberts
7. “A most glorious country”: Charles Darwin and North Wales, especially his 1831 geological tour, P. Lucas

Part III: The Beagle specimens
8. Charles Darwin’s plant collections from the voyage of the Beagle, D. M. Porter
9. Charles Darwin’s Beagle collections in the Oxford University Museum, G. Chancellor, A. DiMauro, R. Ingle & G. King
10. Supplementary notes on Darwin’s insects, K. G. V. Smith
11. More Darwin Beagle notes resurface, D. M. Porter
12. FitzRoy’s foxes and Darwin’s finches, W. R. P. Bourne

Part IV: Darwin’s data gathering: Questions about the breeding of animals
13. Charles Darwin. Questions about the breeding of animals. [1840], G. De Beer
14. Darwin’s Questions about the breeding of animals. With a note on Queries about expression, R. B. Freeman & P. J. Gautrey
15. Charles Darwin’s Questions about the breeding of animals, [1839], R. B. Freeman & P. J. Gautrey
16. Darwin again, J. Browne
17. Charles Darwin and ‘ancient seeds’, D. M. Porter

Part V: Natural selection and after
18. The reading of the Darwin and Wallace papers: an historical “non-event”, J. W. T. Moody
19. T. Lie. The reception of Darwinism in Norway: the early years 1861–1900
20. Darwin’s Archaeopteryx prophecy, G. Kritsky
21. Offprints of Darwin’s “Climbing plants”, 1865, R. B. Freeman
22. Note on the Fritz Müller–Charles Darwin correspondence, A.-K. Mayer
23. Charles Darwin’s Queries about expression, R. B. Freeman & P. J. Gautrey
24. The early American printings of Darwin’s Descent of man…, J. W. Valentine
25. Darwin’s American neighbour, K. G. V. Smith & R. E. Dimick
26. Samuel Butler, Darwin and Darwinism, B. Coleman
27. Charles Darwin at Glenridding House, Ullswater, Cumbria, H. P. Moon
28. Darwin in Chinese, R. B. Freeman
29. Darwin in Chinese: some additions, P. J. P. Whitehead

Part VI: Methodological issues in Darwin studies
30. The Charles Darwin–Joseph Hooker correspondence: an analysis of manuscript resources and their use in biography, J. Browne
31. Exploring Darwin’s correspondence: some important but lesser known correspondents and projects, T. Veak
32. Unveiling Darwin’s roots, M. A. Di Gregorio.