Bücher von Charles Darwin

During 1867 Darwin intensified lines of research that were to result in two important publications, Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex and Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. This research resulted in letters from an even more diverse and far-flung network of correspondents.

This pivotal volume of Charles Darwin's letters will for the first time provide researchers and general readers with the full text of more than 800 letters written and received by Darwin in 1871, the year he made his long-awaited public statement on human evolution in Descent of Man.

Charles Darwin (1809-82) was the English naturalist famous for the theory of evolution by natural selection. He began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, but developed a fascination for natural history and left Edinburgh to attend Christ's College, Cambridge, where he pursued his new interest while taking a Bachelor of Arts degree. After graduating, he had the opportunity to secure a position as ship's naturalist aboard H.M.S. Beagle for a five-year, round-the-world voyage which would make him famous. Published in 1845, this book is the second edition of Darwin's expedition journal, more popularly known as The Voyage of the Beagle. Throughout the journey he made observations and discoveries that would lead him to develop his revolutionary theory of evolution, which later appeared in On the Origin of Species and created a storm in the scientific and religious communities.

This volume is part of the definitive edition of letters written by and to Charles Darwin, the most celebrated naturalist of the nineteenth century. Notes and appendixes put these fascinating and wide-ranging letters in context, making the letters accessible to both scholars and general readers. Darwin depended on correspondence to collect data from all over the world and to discuss his emerging ideas with scientific colleagues, many of whom he never met in person. The letters are published chronologically: volume 22 includes letters from 1874, the year in which Darwin completed his research on insectivorous plants and published second editions of Descent of Man and Coral Reefs. The year also saw an acrimonious dispute between Darwin and St George Jackson Mivart as a result of an anonymous review the latter had written in which he criticised Darwin's son George.

After the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859 Darwin became fascinated with the potential of botanical experiments to provide evidence for the process of evolution. This 1877 book examines plant species which produce different forms of flower structures and provides the first functional interpretation of this phenomenon.

First published in 1846, Darwin's Geological Observations made up the third part of his memoir of his voyage on the Beagle during the years 1832-1836. While the first part (1842) focused on the structure and distribution of coral reefs and the second (1844) described the volcanic islands visited during the voyage, this third instalment is devoted exclusively to South America, where Darwin spent the longest period of the expedition. It discusses South America's geological and seismic history, the mineral content of lava and granite, and the deformation of metamorphic rock. Separate chapters cover different geographical areas, and topics include the formation of the East and West Coasts and the pampas, the plains and valleys of Chile, and the structure of the Cordillera. Geological Observations also includes detailed maps of South America and sketches of the terrain.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published Observations on the Volcanic Islands in 1844. It is one of three major geological works resulting from the voyage of the Beagle, and contains detailed geological descriptions of locations visited by Darwin including the Cape Verde archipelago, Mauritius, Ascension Island, St Helena, the Galapagos, and parts of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Chapter 6 discusses the types of lava found on different oceanic islands. There is an appendix of short contributions by two other scholars: descriptions of fossil shells from Cape Verde, St Helena and Tasmania by G. B. Sowerby and of fossil corals from Tasmania by W. Lonsdale. The book is illustrated with woodcuts, maps and sketches of specimens. It provides valuable insights into one of the most important scientific voyages ever made, and the development of Darwin's ideas on geology.

In this investigation of orchids, first published in 1862, Darwin expands on a point made in On the Origin of Species that he felt required further explanation, namely that he believes it to be 'a universal law of nature that organic beings require an occasional cross with another individual'. Darwin explains the method by which orchids are fertilised by insects, and argues that the intricate structure of their flowers evolved to favour cross pollination because of its advantages to the species. The book is written in Darwin's usual precise and elegant style, accessible despite its intricate detail. It includes a brief explanation of botanical terms and is illustrated with 34 woodcuts.

This volume, like others in the series, is an important resource for historians of science, social historians, and the general reader. It covers the lead-up to the publication of one of the most important scientific publications of its time, Descent of Man, and reveals a cross-section of Victorian life.

The development of Charles Darwin's views on evolution by natural selection has fascinated biologists since the 1859 publication of his landmark text On The Origin of Species. His experiences, observations and reflections during and after his pivotal journey on the Beagle during 1831-36 were of critical importance. Darwin was not, however, a man to be rushed. While his autobiography claims that the framework of his theory was laid down by 1839, its first outline sketch did not emerge until 1842. That essay was heavily edited, with many insertions and erasures. It formed the vital kernel of his more expansive but also unpolished and unpublished essay of 1844. Following careful editing by his son Francis, both essays were published in 1909, and are reproduced here. Reading these side by side, and together with the Origin, permits us to scrutinise selection and evolution truly in action.

A study of the muscular movements of the face (both human and animal) triggered by the emotions being felt - a 'physical' response to a 'mental' sensation. Darwin's detailed analysis of what actually happens to the body in a state of fear, or joy, or anger is illustrated by photographic images.

These two short monographs, published under the auspices of the Palaeontographical Society in 1851 and 1854, show Charles Darwin as a meticulous research scientist, poring over fossils collected by himself and other enthusiasts in Britain and in Europe. The first volume is devoted to the Lepadidae, and the second to the Balanidae and Verrucidae (all types of barnacle, members of the infraclass Cirripedia). Darwin's interest in barnacles had first arisen in his student days in Edinburgh, under the guidance of Robert Grant, and increased during his detailed work in dissecting and classifying the specimens he had collected on the Beagle voyage. The publication of his findings cemented his reputation as a expert taxonomist and biologist, and his observations over eight years of the minute differences between males, females and an apparent hermaphroditic stage of development lent support to his developing theory of evolution.

Written in collaboration with his son Francis, a notable botanist, this 1880 book builds on Darwin's earlier investigations into climbing plants, orchids, insectivorous plants, flower variety, and the processes of fertilisation. This detailed study of many species from seed to mature plant further develops Darwin's work on adaptation and evolution, with the aim of collating the results of individual studies into common factors applicable to plants in general. Particular emphasis is given to analysis and investigation of the process here termed circumnutation, the movement of the stem of the plant in order to direct the head in certain directions. This is seen as of paramount importance, with the conclusion that it is modification of this feature that has enabled plants to adapt and evolve so diversely. The authors also note similarities between plants and animals, such as sensitivity to touch and habit of action at certain times.

Initially published by the Linnean Society, this 1865 essay was Darwin's first foray into the study of climbing plants. He was inspired to produce this work by a paper on the tendrilled Cucurbitacean plant by American botanist Asa Gray, with whom he had a firm intellectual friendship. Darwin examines in detail those plants which climb using a twisting stem, such as the hop; leaf-climbers, such as the clematis; tendrilled plants such as the passion flower; and hook and root climbers such as ivy. The conclusions reached by his study are presented in terms of the adaptations of various species to their environments, a continuation of the theories that Darwin had propounded in his On the Origin of the Species six years earlier. His passion for the design of the plants and fascination with the diversity of their powers of movement are clear in this accessible example of the process of evolution.

This sixth edition of The Origin of Species was published in 1876. It is the last edition on which Darwin himself worked before his death in 1882, and complements the 2009 scholarly edition, edited by Jim Endersby and published by Cambridge University Press in Darwin's bicentennial year.

This book, the second of three-volumes detailing the life of Charles Darwin was edited by his son. It includes an autobiographical essay which Charles Darwin wrote for his children and grandchildren, rather than for publication. This account of Darwin the man has never been bettered.

This book, the first of three-volumes detailing the life of Charles Darwin, was edited by his son. It includes an autobiographical essay which Charles Darwin wrote with a view to informing his children and grandchildren, rather than for publication. This account of Darwin the man has never been bettered.

Even before Charles Darwin changed the world with his theory of natural selection, he was recognised as an eminent scientist and natural historian. Published in 1840, his Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle reveals him as a writer of formidable intelligence and a keen observer of natural and human life. Darwin's journal encompasses every observable detail of the animals, birds and plants he encountered on the five-year voyage. It includes minute descriptions and even sketches of the movements and habits of hitherto unfamiliar species. Accompanying the entries are his own conclusions, analyses and classificatory notes that demonstrate his skill and talent as a naturalist. Darwin's entries on natural phenomena are interspersed with anecdotes of the indigenous peoples he encountered, transforming his journal from an impersonal scientific record to a book of true human interest.

The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication follows from the first chapters of On the Origin of Species. Volume 1 deals with variations introduced into species as a result of domestication. It is a masterpiece of nineteenth-century scientific investigation and a key text in the development of Darwin's evolutionary theories.

Darwin's impetus for the experiments of which the results are recorded in this book was 'a mere accidental observation; and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seedlings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings of cross-fertilised parentage'. After eleven years of meticulous experimentation and observation, described in this volume, he was ready to publish in 1876 the detailed study which he regarded as a companion volume to his 1862 On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects. His 'first and most important of the conclusions which may be drawn ... is that cross-fertilisation is generally beneficial, and self-fertilisation injurious': this understanding is of course the basis of all modern plant breeding programmes.

This book, published in 1881, was the result of many years of experimentation and observation by Darwin in the open-air laboratory of his garden at Down House in Kent. As he wrote in his introduction, the subject of soil disturbance by worms 'may appear an insignificant one, but we shall see that it possesses some interest'. He goes on to demonstrate the immensity - in size and over time - of the accumulated tiny movements of soil by earthworms, and their vital role in aerating the soil and breaking down vegetable material to keep the topsoil, the growing medium for all plant life and thus vital to human existence, fertile and healthy. At a time when there is huge interest in growing food organically and without using artificial fertilisers, Darwin's insights are as important, and his descriptions of his experiments as fascinating, as they were in the late nineteenth century.

Darwin's two-volume work on the area of sexual selection and the evolutionary importance of secondary sexual characteristics (such as the brighter plumage of male birds) across the whole of the animal kingdom.

Darwin had long been fascinated by insectivorous plants, from the native British sundews and bladderworts to the exotic pinguiculas and nepenthes which he encountered during the Beagle voyage. Growing in environments low in soil nutrients, their highly specialised ways of obtaining enough food, including the capability for fast movement in the case of the Venus flytrap, were evidence of evolutionary adaptation. But he was also interested in what food they needed, and whether they would be selective when offered a varied diet; and how did the flytrap close its trap on its prey? Darwin conducted a range of simple but ingenious experiments on his collection of insectivores and observed and noted the results of each with his customary meticulousness. The results can be seen in this book, which remains of enormous interest to anyone whose imagination has been fired by these strange and beautiful plants.

Throughout 1869, Darwin continued to collect data for his two most significant books after Origin: The Descent of Man and Expression of the Emotions. Explorers, diplomats, and missionaries all over the world were politely encouraged to investigate, for example, how emotions were expressed in different cultures.

In the Origin of Species (1859) Darwin challenged many of the most deeply held beliefs of the Western world. The present edition provides a detailed discussion of his theories and adds an account of the responses of readers to the book on first publication. These cast light on recent controversies, such as questions of design and descent.

Before Charles Darwin's famous voyage on the Beagle, the ship and its captain Robert Fitzroy (1805-65) had participated in a challenging survey of the South American coastline. Volume 1 of this three-volume work, published in 1839, describes that 1826-30 expedition, while Volumes 2 and 3 cover the second voyage.

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection is both a key scientific work of research, still read by scientists, and a readable narrative that has had a cultural impact unmatched by any other scientific text. First published in 1859, it has continued to sell, to be reviewed and discussed, attacked and defended. The Origin is one of those books whose controversial reputation ensures that many who have never read it nevertheless have an opinion about it. Jim Endersby's major scholarly edition debunks some of the myths that surround Darwin's book, while providing a detailed examination of the contexts within which it was originally written, published and read. Endersby provides a very readable introduction to this classic text and a level of scholarly apparatus (explanatory notes, bibliography and appendixes) that is unmatched by any other edition.

The letters in this volume cover two of the most momentous years in Darwin's life. They detail the various stages in the preparation of what was to become one of the world's most famous works: Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, published by John Murray in November 1859.

The correspondence in this volume reveals the two sides of Darwin's life in a new intensity. It opens with a family tragedy in the death of Darwin's oldest and best loved daughter, Anne, and goes on to show how Darwin sought relief from his loss through work.

This volume inaugurates a complete edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. For the first time full authoritative texts of Darwin's letters are available, edited according to modern textual editorial principles and practice. The first volume of the edition contains the letters of the years 1821-1836.