Skip to product information
1 of 1

The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: Volume 1, 1821–1836

Author(s): Charles Darwin, Edited by Frederick Burkhardt, Sydney Smith, Edited in association with David Kohn, William Montgomery

ISBN: 9780521255875
Publication Date: 07/03/1985
Pages: 752
Format: Hardback
Regular price £140.00 GBP
Regular price Sale price £140.00 GBP

🚚 Free UK delivery on books (excluding sale). T&Cs apply.

Free click & collect on all orders.

This volume inaugurates a complete edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. For the first time full authoritative texts of Darwin's letters are available, edited according to modern textual editorial principles and practice. The first volume of the edition contains the letters of the years 1821–1836. They begin with one written to Darwin at the age of twelve and continue through his school days at Shrewsbury, his two years as a medical student at Edinburgh, the undergraduate years at Cambridge, and his five years of exploration and learning during the voyage of the Beagle. These were Darwin's years of initiation and preparation for a life of science. In the earliest letters Darwin appears already keenly interested in natural history and an avid collector of minerals, plants, marine invertebrates, and insects - especially beetles. The letters of the succeeding years tell the story of the young Darwin's development up to his return to England when, at the age of twenty-seven, he was received as a colleague by Charles Lyell, Adam Sedgwick, and other leading scientists, who had already heard of his discoveries and observations during the Beagle voyage.