The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: Volume 18, 1870

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. It is already an important source for students and scholars in many academic disciplines. 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 18 includes letters from 1870, as well as a supplement of more than a hundred recently discovered or redated letters from before 1870. During 1870 Darwin was making final preparations for publication of Descent of Man, as well as continuing his research on expression in humans and animals.

Frederick Burkhardt (1912-2007), the founder of the Darwin Correspondence Project, was president of Bennington College, Vermont, 1947-1957, and president of the American Council of Learned Societies, 1957-1974. 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, the director of the Darwin Correspondence Project, is a Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University, and author of Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (2000), which won the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society.