Darwin: A Biography

Janet Browne’s award-winning, two-volume biography of Charles Darwin has been described by many reviewers as the definitive biography of the father of evolution. Now, Browne has skillfully distilled and fully revised the work into a concise yet comprehensive one-volume biography that offers significant new interpretations of Darwin and the scientific and political legacy of his discoveries.

Few men shook the Victorian world like Darwin did, and his story is in many ways that of the nineteenth century. His theory of evolution was born in the age of empire and had its greatest effect in the age of capitalism. It was to change the course of science, culture, and history, and deeply influence literature, art, philosophy, religion, politics, and economics. This magisterial biography follows Darwin from his early life and adventures on HMS Beagle to the tumult of becoming one of the first scientific celebrities with the publication of the Origin of Species. Through personal letters and archives, Browne describes the processes that brought the idea of evolution by natural selection into British society and beyond, especially Darwin’s relationship with Alfred Russel Wallace, who simultaneously proposed the same theory, and with the many people who helped and supported Darwin, including his wife Emma Wedgwood. Combining the best elements of social and intellectual biography, Browne places Darwin in cultural context and integrates his ideas with his private life.

Vivid, revealing, and compellingly readable, Darwin is the indispensable biography of a gentleman naturalist who would become one of the most important, influential, and controversial scientists of all time.