Charles Darwin: A Biography, Volume 1: Voyaging

This book is the first part of a really excellent two-volume biography of Charles Darwin. If you want a well-written, in-depth and very detailed Darwin biography, then this is the one for you. The great evolutionary theorist Ernst Mayr called it “the definitive Darwin biography”. Browne’s study is, on balance, even better (and definitely even more detailed) than that other great biography, “Darwin”, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore.

Stephen Jay Gould once described Darwin as being “radical in his scientific ideas, liberal in his political and social views, and conservative in personal lifestyle...”

This book by Janet Browne shows us that Gould’s summary of Darwin is a perfectly accurate one. Browne describes Darwin’s show more personality, his personal life, his class position, the social context of nineteenth century England, and the influences which led him to develop his theory of natural selection, as well as Darwin’s researches and the theory itself.

This first volume covers Darwin’s childhood and youth, his voyage on the Beagle, and then his life back in England up to 1856, when he finally decided to start writing up his theory in detail for publication.

There is plenty of ammunition in this book to shoot down the ridiculous conspiracy theory which claims that Darwin stole the credit for the theory of natural selection from Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace certainly deserves credit for independently coming up with the same idea, but Wallace himself was always happy to play second fiddle to Darwin. For example, in 1908 Wallace made a speech to the Linnaean Society in which he explicitly defended Darwin’s priority, pointing out that “...the idea occurred to Darwin in October 1838, nearly twenty years earlier than to myself (in February 1858); and that during the whole of that twenty years he had been laboriously collecting evidence...”

This book shows that Darwin probably started thinking seriously about “transmutation” on the last stretch of his Beagle voyage in 1836. He certainly opened his first notebook on the subject in 1837, and the idea of natural selection as the mechanism of evolutionary change came to him, after reading Malthus, in 1838. In 1842 he wrote what he called the “pencil sketch of my species theory”, and in 1844 he wrote a fuller and more polished version.

Darwin’s letters, notebooks and the two essays/sketches, show beyond question that all the key ideas that Darwin made public in 1859 in “On the Origin of Species” had already been developed by him much earlier.

For example, in a letter of 1844 Darwin tentatively let his friend Hooker in on his secret theorising and research: “...I am almost convinced...that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable...I think I have found out (here’s presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends.” He also set out the theory in an 1857 letter to Asa Gray.

I also find the personal side of Darwin’s story interesting, including, for example, the tragic and moving story of the death of his daughter Anne, and the worries that Darwin’s theories caused for his religious wife, Emma.

There are only two things that I am not happy with Janet Browne about. Firstly, there is the fact that seven years passed between the publication of the two separate volumes of this biography. Even allowing for the enormous amount of research that went into these volumes, that is a long time! I remember that when the first volume was published in 1995 I decided not to get it until the second one was published, so that I could buy and read both together. I didn’t think that I would have to wait for seven years to be able to do that. Still, that’s water under the bridge now.

My second quibble is that Browne speculates, without any real evidence, about the sexuality of Robert Grant, whom Darwin met in Edinburgh. Darwin ended up losing his respect for Grant because he felt that Grant had appropriated some of Darwin’s own researches. But Browne, uncharacteristically, rather wildly speculates that the rift might also have developed because Darwin might have “proved unresponsive to late-night suggestions of a different nature.” Evidence?

But these two points in no way prevent me from thoroughly recommending this wonderful biography. show less

Janet Browne's career is subsumed in this masterpiece. This isn't merely a biography of Darwin. It's an account of the role of science in the early and middle Victorian period, spanning continents. She writes about the rivalry between Cambridge (Darwin's second university) and Oxford; the role of Parliamentary reform in the universities, and its relationship to political and church reform; what natural theology was about and what happened to it; the function of women in science writing as editors and hidden contributors; the fundamental importance of the postal service.

Browne's scholarship yields enormous clarity and breadth of vision. It's not just a brilliant biography and contextual history, but sets challenging standards for the show more writing of biography in general. This is certainly the best biography I have read in a very long time.

I'm busy with the second volume now. Review coming when done! show less

At the close of this 550 page biography of Darwin's life up to age 49, I was disappointed that I would have too wait to read the second volume. You might think that 200 pages on Darwin's early life is too much, but Browne reveals his early interest in nature and offers convincing evidence that Darwin was not the home-bound hypochondriac I at least imagined before reading this biography. We tend to focus too much on natural selection and evolution, and not enough on his studies of geology and taxonomy, not to mention Darwin's successful fossil-hunting in South America. Sound intriguing? It is! It's also very illuminating about how Darwin struggled to explain species variability and to accept evolution as a fact, and how he became a show more masterful politician in the scientific circles of his day. show less

Fantastic.meticulously researched but also presented in an appealing narrative fashion. The author shows how Darwin the man and Darwin the naturalist developed . She shares some of his less pleasant idiosyncrasies without diminishing the genius scientist or the good man that still shines through

A well-researched book, yet delightful to read, with many specific, often humorous details.

I personally like science writing that isn't overly stylistic. It tends to distract me from the content of the book (I think Gould fits in the overly stylistic category). This book was written in a straight-forward manner, and provides a fascinating account of Darwin's life up to the point where he's about to write the Origin of Species.

Absorbing.