Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in an Selected Series of his Published Letters, 1902

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First published in 1892 this edition of Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of his Letters, was published in London John Murray in 1902 and contains a photograph of Darwin towards the end of his life by Elliott and Fry, one of a limited edition of 4,000 such reproductions. In his preface to the first edition, Francis Darwin, the third son and seventh child of Charles and the author and compiler of this work - himself a renowned biologist - states that this publication is 'practically an abbreviation of the Life and Letters' of Charles Darwin, published in 1887. Containing some 350 printed pages, Francis Darwin's Charles Darwin details in thirteen chapters much of the life of Charles Darwin revealed mainly through his correspondence with colleagues, with a large portion of the book given over to the development of the ideas and eventual publication of the work that was to eventually change the way man viewed everything about himself and the world in which he inhabited: Origin of the Species.

Although an abbreviation of Life and Letters, Francis Darwin notes that the chapters detailing the story of the Origins of the Species are 'told with nearly the full amount of available material'. Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, an in a Selected Series of his Letters is a roughly chronological account of the life of Charles Darwin beginning with his birth in Shropshire in 1809 and with his death at Downe House in Kent in 1882 and funeral at Westminster Abbey. Charles Darwin is introduced by its author with a brief sketch of the Darwins and is followed by 'the autobiography' indicated in the title of this publication. This fifty-page account of his life was composed by Darwin at the prompting of a a German editor who had written to Darwin requesting 'an account of the development of my mind and character with some sketch of my autobiography'. Written in August 1876 and entitled Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character, Darwin thought that an attempt to sketch his life would be 'amusing'; written for his children and grandchildren Darwin's recollections were composed as if her 'were a dead man in another world looking back at my own life'.

It is to the Origins of the Species, Darwin's legacy to humankind, that much of this book is given over to. With chapters on his appointment to the Beagle, the five year voyage and even longer thirteen year ruminations on what the voyage's discoveries might mean to the germination of ideas that led to the writing of the Origins of the Species, which took a further thirteen years, until eventual publication at the end of 1859. Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of his Letters is concluded by the impact of the Origins of the Species in the decade after its publication together with more detailed examinations on some of Charles Darwin's botanical work. This 1902 edition of Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of his Letters, which is indexed, is republished here digitally.

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