Charles Darwin's Notebooks from the Voyage of the Beagle

by Gordon Chancellor, John van Wyhe, Richard Darwin Keynes

Overview

This is the first full edition of the notebooks used by Darwin during his epic voyage in the Beagle. It contains transcriptions of all fifteen notebooks, which now survive as some of the most precious documents in the history of science. The notebooks record the entire range of Darwin’s interests and activities during the Beagle journey, with observations on geology, zoology, botany, ecology, barometer and thermometer readings, ethnography, anthropology, archaeology and linguistics, along with maps, drawings, financial records, shopping lists, reading notes, essays and personal diary entries. Some of Darwin’s critical discoveries and experiences, made famous through his own publications, are recorded in their most immediate form in the notebooks, and published here for the first time. The notebook texts are accompanied by full editorial apparatus and introductions explaining Darwin’s actions at each stage, focussing on discoveries that were pivotal to convincing him that life on Earth had evolved.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521517577
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/02/2009
Pages:	650
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.80(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Gordon Chancellor is currently Business Manager at the UK Data Archive, University of Essex. He was formerly based at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, and before that, managed several regional museums in the UK. He graduated in geology from the University of Wales in 1976, and completed his PhD in palaeontology at the University of Aberdeen, with periods of research at the Universities of Uppsala and Texas at Austin. He carried out post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford in the early 1980s, and began work on the initial transcriptions of the notebooks. He has published works on Cretaceous palaeontology as well as several scholarly papers on Darwin and the Beagle, and is now writing introductions to Darwin's geological publications as Associate Editor of Darwin Online.

John van Wyhe is an historian of science. He is the founder and Director of Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) - the largest edition of Darwin's publications and manuscripts ever published, and a Bye-Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge (Darwin's own college). He recently led the restoration of Darwin's rooms at Christ's College. Dr van Wyhe's research has challenged the long-held view that Darwin held back or kept his theory secret for 20 years (Darwin's delay). His books include Charles Darwin's Shorter Publications, 1829–1883, with a foreword by Janet Browne and Jim Secord (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Darwin in Cambridge (Cambridge, Christ's College, 2009) and Darwin (Andre Deutsch, 2008, and National Geographic, 2009).

Table of Contents

Foreword by Richard Darwin Keynes; Introduction; Acknowledgements; List of illustrations; The Notebooks: Cape de Verds, Rio, Buenos Ayres, Falkland, B. Blanca, St. Fe, Banda Oriental, Port Desire, Valparaiso, Santiago, Galapagos, Coquimbo, Copiapò, Despoblado, Sydney; Expedition equipment; Chronological register; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Gordon Chancellor and John Van Wyhe are to be thanked for doing this onerous job and doing it so carefully and thoughtfully be providing nice introductions to the notebooks and careful editorial annotations throughout."
Michael Ruse, The Quarterly Review of Biology

"The transcriptions of the notebooks will excite naturalists and historians of science. Recommended."
J.S. Schwartz, Choice Magazine

"This impressive book comes with a detailed chronology indicating where Darwin was for about every day between 1832 and 1836, plus appendixes, bibliography, and a detailed index. All in all, this hefty Charles Darwin’s Notebooks from the Voyage of the ‘Beagle’ is a meticulously edited piece, for advanced scholars in natural sciences, history of science, palaeontology, and anthropology. It provides some interesting dimensions about how scientific observation was made two centuries ago."
Yves Laberge, PaleoAnthropology

From the Publisher