Ever wondered how Darwin worked? To celebrate Darwin’s 211th birthday we are launching For the Curious, a series of simple interactives that explore different areas of Darwin’s life, work and legacy through his letters.
We start with ‘Darwin working from home’, in which you can explore objects from Darwin’s study and garden at Down House to learn how he worked and what he had to say about it. Not all his work days were successful, here are some letters about Darwin's bad days.
Edward Emanuel Klein had assisted Darwin with his experiments on the digestive fluid of insectivorous plants. In 1875, Klein was a very controversial witness at the Royal Commission on vivisection. When asked about his use of anaesthetics in research, Klein expressed doubt about the validity of experiments conducted under such conditions, and even asserted that he had ‘no regard at all’ for the sufferings of animals when performing a painful experiment. Darwin also testified to the commission, and wrote of Klein's contribution: ‘I am astounded & disgusted ... but it is most painful as I liked the man.’
In 1879, Darwin continued his research on movement in plants and researched, wrote, and published a short biography of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin as an introduction to a translation of an essay by Ernst Krause on Erasmus’s scientific work. Darwin’s son Francis spent a second summer at the Botanical Institute in Würzburg, Germany, learning the latest experimental techniques in plant physiology. As well as their regular tour of visits to family, the Darwins spent most of August on holiday in the Lake District. In October, Darwin’s youngest son, Horace, became officially engaged to Ida Farrer, after some initial resistance from her father, who, although an admirer of Charles Darwin, thought Horace a poor prospect for his daughter. Volume 27 of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin is now available. Read more about Darwin's life in 1879.
Think you know of a letter to or from Darwin that we haven’t found? Let us know!
Although we already know of more than 15,000 letters that Darwin exchanged with nearly 2000 correspondents around the world, letters continue to come to light in both public and private collections, and we rely on the goodwill and support of archivists, collectors, scholars, and families around the world to make the corpus as complete as possible. The letters inform and are informed by one another, and our ability to understand the whole is increased with every letter we are able to add.
For all his working life, Darwin used letters as a way both of discussing ideas and gathering the ‘great quantities of facts’ that he used in developing and supporting his theories. They form a fascinating collection from many hundreds of correspondents, containing diagrams and drawings, personal observations, photographs, and even specimens.
The quantity of Darwin’s correspondence increased dramatically in 1868 due largely to his ever-widening research on human evolution and sexual selection.Darwin’s theory of sexual selection as applied to human descent led him to investigate aspects of the structure and behaviour of other animals more extensively, and to further this programme, he re-established links with specialists who had provided assistance. Considerable correspondence was generated by the long-awaited publication of Variation in animals and plants under domestication. Having been advertised by the publisher John Murray as early as 1865, the two-volume work appeared in January 1868.
This speciallycommissioned BBC Radio drama is based entirely on Charles and Emma Darwin’s own words and correspondence. Behind the controversial public persona, Darwin was an affectionate family man, fully engaged – sometimes heartbreakingly so – in the lives of his wife, Emma and their children.
Read and search the full texts of more than 12,000 of Charles Darwin’s letters, and find information on 3,000 more. Discover complete transcripts of all known letters Darwin wrote and received up to the year 1877.
Darwin for Schools
Discover our new and improved schools resources for 11-14 year olds.