Bücher der Reihe Cambridge Library Collection - Darwin, Evolution and Genetics

The botanist Asa Gray (1810-88) was important in unifying taxonomic knowledge of North American flora. The first volume of this 1889 two-volume selection edited by Charles Sprague Sargent (1841-1927) includes Gray's reviews of important scientific publications, illuminating the development of botanical literature over a period of fifty-three years.

Written by evolutionary biologist and Royal Society Fellow George John Romanes (1848-94), this three-volume study of Darwin's work considers the many implications of evolution by natural selection. First published in 1892, Volume 1 focuses on the Darwinian theory itself. This second edition appeared in 1893.

Published in 1903 and edited by his son Leonard Huxley, this three-volume set is the second, extended edition of the biography and selected letters of 'Darwin's Bulldog', T. H. Huxley (1825-95). Volume 1 covers the period 1825-69, including the publication of On the Origin of Species.

First published in 1908, this catalogue to the Darwin's personal library, now held at Cambridge University Library, provides a gateway into Darwin's thought, research and intellectual context. The book lists works in English and other languages with bibliographic details, including many important contemporary works which bear Darwin's own annotations.

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 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.

Leading scholars from a wide range of disciplines addressed the 'educated layman' in reviewing contemporary (1909) attitudes towards the work of Charles Darwin and its far-reaching consequences in this first-centenary volume. The diversity of views among them regarding both evolution and directions for further research is clearly evident.

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.

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.

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.

Written by his colleague Karl Pearson, this four-part biography of eugenicist Sir Francis Galton presents a detailed account of the life of the controversial scientist. First published in 1914, Volume 1 covers the years from Galton's birth in 1822 to his marriage to Louisa Jane Butler in 1853.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer and biologist, best remembered as the co-discoverer, with Darwin, of natural selection. He was also a social activist, spiritualist, and early environmentalist. This 1905 autobiography recounts his long career, travels, and acquaintance with the leading scientists of his day.

George John Romanes (1848-94) was an influential evolutionary biologist and one of the pioneers of comparative psychology. He was a close friend of Charles Darwin (1809-82), and this biography, written in 1896 by Romanes' wife, includes correspondence between the two scientists.

In this two-volume work of 1809, the great French zoologist Lamarck (1744-1829) outlines his theory that under the pressure of different external circumstances, species can develop variations, and that new species and genera can eventually evolve as a result. His theory of 'soft inheritance' greatly influenced Charles Darwin.

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.

Darwiniana is a collection of critical essays on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that were originally published in scientific journals by his friend and correspondent Asa Gray, Professor of Botany at Harvard. Gray was one of Darwin's strongest supporters in the American scientific community; he was also a Presbyterian and discussed questions of natural theology, design and teleology, including an earlier version of Chapter 3 of this book, with Darwin by letter over several years. Darwiniana (1876) was intended to provide a balanced assessment of Darwin's theory of evolution and to familiarise readers with the different aspects of Darwinism and its implications. The opening essays of the volume focus on the scientific and philosophical features of the theory, others analyse the reactions of Darwin's contemporaries and, most famously, argue for a reconciliation of religion and science in the light of Darwin's theory.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was published anonymously in 1844. Starting with the genesis of the solar system, it progresses systematically through such topics as the formation of the earth, the origins of marine life, the emergence of reptiles, birds and other life forms, and the evolution of human life. Drawing widely upon contemporary ideas from astronomy, biology, geology, linguistics, and anthropology, it seeks to establish the 'hypothesis of an organic creation by natural law'. Preceding Darwin's Origin of Species by fifteen years, Vestiges ignited a storm of controversy by pitting natural law and its role in what would soon come to be known as 'evolution' against the generally accepted Victorian belief that the universe was created by God. In 1884, it was revealed that the author was the British publisher Robert Chambers. This fifth edition of the work also contains its 1845 sequel, Explanations.

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) became known as 'Darwin's bulldog' because of his forceful and energetic support for Darwin's theory, especially at the notorious British Association meeting in Oxford in 1860. In fact, Huxley had some reservations about aspects of the theory, especially the element of gradual, continuous progress, but in public he was unwavering in his allegiance, saying in a letter to Darwin 'As for your doctrines I am prepared to go to the Stake if requisite'. In his 1870 essay collection Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews, of which the title alone was designed to provoke controversy, he offers a variety of his writings, many of which were originally talks given to a range of audiences from learned societies to a working men's college, and including his own review of On the Origin of Species and a typically passionate response to two other reviews less favourable to Darwin.

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) became known as 'Darwin's bulldog' because of his forceful and energetic support for Darwin's theory, most famously at the legendary British Association meeting in Oxford in 1860. In fact, Huxley had some reservations about aspects of the theory, especially the element of gradual, continuous progress, but in public he was unwavering in his allegiance, saying in a letter to Darwin 'As for your doctrines I am prepared to go to the Stake if requisite'. In his 1892 Essays upon Some Controverted Questions, Huxley collected some of his previously published writings, of which the titles alone give some flavour of his pugnacious stance in debate: 'The interpreters of Genesis and the interpreters of Nature'; 'Science and pseudo-science'; 'Agnosticism and Christianity'. The passion for scientific truth which underlies everything he writes is well demonstrated in this lively and still-relevant collection.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) is regarded as the co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of evolution. It was an essay which Wallace sent in 1858 to Darwin (to whom he had dedicated his most famous book, The Malay Archipelago) which impelled Darwin to publish an article on his own long-pondered theory simultaneously with that of Wallace. As a travelling naturalist and collector in the Far East and South America, Wallace already inclined towards the Lamarckian theory of transmutation of species, and his own researches convinced him of the reality of evolution. On the publication of On the Origin of Species, Wallace became one of its most prominent advocates. This second, corrected, edition (1871) of a series of essays published in book form in 1870, shows the development of his thinking about evolution, and emphasises his admiration for, and support of, Darwin's work.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) is regarded as the co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of evolution. It was an essay which Wallace sent in 1858 to Darwin (whom he greatly admired and to whom he dedicated his most famous book, The Malay Archipelago) which impelled Darwin to publish an article on his own long-pondered theory simultaneously with that of Wallace. As a travelling naturalist and collector in the Far East and South America, Wallace already inclined towards the Lamarckian theory of transmutation of species, and his own researches convinced him of the reality of evolution. On the publication of On the Origin of Species, Wallace became one of its most prominent advocates, and Darwinism, published in 1889, supports the theory and counters many of the arguments put forward by scientists and others who opposed it.

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.