Kirjahaku

In 1858, Charles Darwin was forty-nine years old, a gentleman scientist living quietly at Down House in the Kent countryside. He was not yet a focus of debate; his "big book on species" still lay on his desk as a manuscript. For more than twenty years he had been accumulating material for it, puzzling over the questions that it raised, trying to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion, and wanting to be certain that his startling theory of evolution was correct. It is at this point that the concluding volume of Janet Browne's magisterial biography opens. Beginning with the extraordinary events that finally forced the Origin of Species into print, we come to the years of fame and controversy. Here, Browne does dramatic justice to all aspects of the Darwinian revolution, from a fascinating examination of the Victorian publishing scene to a survey of the debates between scientists and churchmen over evolutionary theory. At the same time, she presents a wonderfully sympathetic and authoritative picture of Darwin himself.

The definitive biography of Charles Darwin—now in one abridged and fully updated volume Based on the two-volume National Book Critics Circle Award–winning biography hailed as “the definitive Darwin biography” (Newsday) • “a wonderful and well-rounded portrait” (The Washington Post) • and “magnificent” and “irresistible” (The Sunday Times) Janet Browne’s award-winning, two-volume biography of Charles Darwin has been described by many reviewers as the definitive biography of the father of evolution. Now, Browne has skillfully distilled and fully revised the work into a concise yet comprehensive one-volume biography that offers significant new interpretations of Darwin and the scientific and political legacy of his discoveries. Few men shook the Victorian world like Darwin did, and his story is in many ways that of the nineteenth century. His theory of evolution was born in the age of empire and had its greatest effect in the age of capitalism. It was to change the course of science, culture, and history, and deeply influence literature, art, philosophy, religion, politics, and economics. This magisterial biography follows Darwin from his early life and adventures on HMS Beagle to the tumult of becoming one of the first scientific celebrities with the publication of the Origin of Species. Through personal letters and archives, Browne describes the processes that brought the idea of evolution by natural selection into British society and beyond, especially Darwin’s relationship with Alfred Russel Wallace, who simultaneously proposed the same theory, and with the many people who helped and supported Darwin, including his wife Emma Wedgwood. Combining the best elements of social and intellectual biography, Browne places Darwin in cultural context and integrates his ideas with his private life. Vivid, revealing, and compellingly readable, Darwin is the indispensable biography of a gentleman naturalist who would become one of the most important, influential, and controversial scientists of all time.

This concluding volume of Janet Browne's biography covers the transformation in Darwin's life after the first unexpected announcement of the theory of evolution by natural selection and the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859.

Charles Darwin's foremost biographer, Janet Browne, delivers a vivid and accessible introduction to the book that permanently altered our understanding of what it is to be human. A sensation on its publication in 1859, The Origin of the Species profoundly shocked Victorian readers by calling into question the belief in a Creator with its description of evolution through natural selection. And Darwin's seminal work is nearly as controversial today. In her illuminating study, Browne delves into the long genesis of Darwin's theories, from his readings as a university student and his five-year voyage on the Beagle, to his debates with contemporaries and experiments in his garden. She explores the shock to Darwin when he read of competing scientist's similar discoveries and the wide and immediate impact of Darwin's theories on the world. As one of the launch titles in Atlantic Monthly Press' "Books That Changed the World" series, Browne's history takes readers inside The Origin of the Species and shows why it can fairly claim to be the greatest science book ever published.

Few lives of great men offer so much interest - and so many mysteries - as the life of Charles Darwin, the greatest figure of nineteenth-century science, whose ideas are still inspiring discoveries and controversies more than 100 years after his death. Yet, only with the publication of Voyaging, the first volume of this acclaimed biography, do we have a truly vivid and comprehensive picture of Darwin as a man and a scientist. The second and final volume of Janet Browne's biography of Darwin - The Power of Place - is also available from Pimlico.