The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: Volume 22, 1874

Charles Darwin

Mar 2015 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

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 22 includes letters from 1874, the year in which Darwin completed his research on insectivorous plants and published second editions of Descent of Man and Coral Reefs. The year also saw an acrimonious dispute between Darwin and St George Jackson Mivart as a result of an anonymous review the latter had written in which he criticised Darwin's son George.

About the author

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.