The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: Volume 23, 1875

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 23 includes letters from 1875, the year in which Darwin wrote and published Insectivorous plants, a botanical work that was a great success with the reading public, and started writing Cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom. The volume contains an appendix on the 1875 anti-vivisection debates, with which Darwin was closely involved, giving evidence before a Royal Commission on the subject.

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.

Reviews of earlier volumes: 'Nothing in the recent history of science quite tops the achievement of the volumes of Darwin correspondence. It is our own Human Genome Project.' Annals of Science '... a superb series ... beautifully produced, beautifully readable, efficiently indexed, supportively but not gossipily annotated.' The Times Literary Supplement 'Every now and then ... publishing and academe work together to produce books so splendid that it seems ungrateful not to acquire them: this promises to be another such.' The Guardian '... this authoritative work is a model of scholarship in both its comprehensiveness and supporting documentation which provides a rich source of background, biographical and bibliographical detail.' The Naturalist 'These volumes are indeed treasures of high scholarship ... every real science library needs this series.' Trends in Ecology and Evolution '... slowly but surely we are getting an unbelievable source of information on one of the greatest of scientists who ever lived and thought and worked. Who knows what treasures future generations will uncover? For now, as always, the edition is exemplary, with huge amounts of pertinent information in the notes and with amazingly accurate transcriptions of Darwin's appalling handwriting. A true monument of scholarship. My fervent hope is that I shall live to see the completion.' Michael Ruse, The Quarterly Review of Biology '... this latest volume of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin shares the same high production values, attention to detail and scholarly scrupulousness evident in all its predecessors. Amongst the six appendices, for example, are a list of all the periodical reviews of Insectivorous Plants and a hugely valuable account of Darwin's dealings with the question of vivisection, including the text of his testimony to the Royal Commission on the vexed issue.' Gowan Dawson, British Journal for the History of Science