The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: Volume 27, 1879

Description

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 27 includes letters from 1879, the year in which Darwin completed his manuscript on movement in plants. He also researched and published a biography of his grandfather Erasmus. The Darwins spent most of August on holiday in the Lake District. In October, Darwin's youngest son, Horace, became officially engaged to Ida Farrer, after some initial resistance from her father, who, although an admirer of Charles Darwin, thought Horace a poor prospect for his daughter.

Frederick Burkhardt (1912-2007), the founder of the Darwin Correspondence Project, was President of Bennington College, Vermont (1947-57), and President of the American Council of Learned Societies (1957-74). Before founding the Darwin Correspondence Project in 1974, he was already at work on an edition of the papers of the philosopher William James. He received the Modern Language Association of America's first Morton N. Cohen Award for a Distinguished Edition of Letters in 1991, the Founder's Medal of the Society for the History of Natural History in 1997, the Thomas Jefferson Gold Medal of the American Philosophical Society in 2003 and a special citation for outstanding service to the history of science from the History of Science Society in 2005. James A. Secord has served as Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project since 2006. He is also Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ's College. Besides his work for the Darwin Project, his research focuses on the history of science from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. His book, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (2000) won the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society. He has recently written on scientific conversation, scrapbook-keeping and public scientific displays.

'What makes the volumes such fun is how one learns more and more of the everyday life of being a scientist, and this brings me back to the politicking with which I opened this review ... I love the Darwin Correspondence. I learn important things about Darwin's religious beliefs. I learn gossipy things about the sociology of science ...' Michael Ruse, The Quarterly Review of Biology