Origins: Selected Letters of Charles Darwin 1822-1859

Origins (Burkhardt ed., Cambridge University Press 2008), is an updated edition of Charles Darwin’s Letters: a Selection 1825-1859 (Burkhardt ed., Cambridge University Press 1996, paperback edition 1998), incorporating  childhood letters written in 1822 and only discovered after the original selection was published.

The letters offer a window into Darwin’s daily experience, scientific observations, personal concerns, and friendships, affording a unique glimpse of Darwin as both naturalist and family man, from schooldays, through his university career in Edinburgh and Cambridge, and the voyage of the Beagle, up to the publication of  On the Origin of Species. The volume was intended to be more accessible as a source for students, and for the general reader, than the main volumes of the correspondence – it’s also easier to carry. The texts are not heavily annotated, but include enough explanatory material to help readers unfamiliar with the context of the letters. They provide an entertaining and accessible selection of primary source material on the development of the theory of evolution by natural selection, as well as on the life of a Victorian gentleman, his family and friends.

The paperback edition of  Charles Darwin’s Letters: a Selection 1825-1859 appeared on a New Scientist best-seller list alongside Richard Dawkins’s Climbing Mount Improbable and Stephen Jay Gould’s Dinosaur in a Haystack.

Origins can be ordered online from Cambridge University Press (UK), or Cambridge University Press NY in the USA.