Web Resources

  • The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (John van Wyhe's UK site)
  • Further reading

    Beer, Gillian. Darwin's Plots. London, 1983.

    "This seminal volume analyses the background to Darwin's own intellectual development, focusing on his early reading and the ways in which it shaped the language which he eventually used to express his ideas in On the Origin of Species 1859. The main body of the text, however, is given over to a study of how Darwin's theory of evolution was absorbed into the literary culture after 1859. Although Gillian Beer looks at this phenomenon in a broad sense, looking at evolution's impact on writers like Charles Kingsley, her main subjects are George Eliot and Thomas Hardy — two writers who paid close attention to Darwin's text. It is particularly concerned with how the plot structures of Eliot's and Hardy's fiction were influenced by the Darwinian theory of evolution. Ground-breaking piece of work and essential reading for scholars of evolution and literature." --David Clifford

    Bowler, Peter J. Theories of Human Evolution. 1989.

    Bowler, Peter J. Charles Darwin, the man and his influence. Cambridge, 1990.

    Bratchell, D.F. The Impact of Darwin. Avebury, 1981.

    Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. London, 1995. Vol. 2 is in press-

    Darwin, Charles. Charles Darwin's Natural Selection, being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. ed. by R.C. Stauffer Cambridge, 1975.

    Darwin, Charles. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. ed. by Frederick Burkhardt, S. Smith et al, Cambridge University Press Cambridge, 1985

    Includes an on-line calendar with brief details of all known letters to and from Darwin and a complete list of correspondents and brief biographies of them.

    Darwin. Charles Darwin's Notebooks on Transmutation of Species. ed. Gavin de Beer Bulletin of the British Museum Natural History Historical series vol. 2 no 2 London 1960.

    Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: A variorum text ed. by Morse Peckham Philadelphia, 1959.

    de Beer, Gavin. Charles Darwin: Evolution by Natural Selection, London, 1963. (An older biography which focuses more on intellectual and scientific issues than newer biographies which focus more on the social context).

    Desmond, Adrian and Moore, James. Darwin. London, 1992.

    Gillispie, C.C. 'Lamarck and Darwin in the History of Science' in Glass et al eds, Forerunners of Darwin. pp. 265-91.

    Himmelfarb, Gertrude. Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution London, 1959.

    Hodge, M.J.S. and D. Kohn, The immediate origins of Natural Selection', in D. Kohn ed. The Darwinian Heritage, pp. 185-206.

    Hull, D.L. Darwin and his Critics: The Reception of Darwin's Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community Cambridge, Mass., 1974.

    Irvine, William. Apes, Angels and Victorians: A joint biography of Darwin and Huxley. London, 1956.

    James, Rosemary. 'Evolutionary Philosophy and Darwin's Expression of Emotions', Victorian Review, 1992, 18:2, pp. 1-27.

    Kohn, David, ed. The Darwinian Heritage. Princeton, 1985.

    Mayr, Ernst. The Growrh of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance. 1985.

    Mayr, Ernst. 'Ideological resitance to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection' in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 1991, 135:2, pp. 123-39.

    Mayr, Ernst. One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the genesis of modern evolutionary thought London, 1991.

    McKinney, H. ed. Lamarck to Darwin: Contributions to Evolutionary Biology. Kansas 1971.

    Moore, James R. The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A study of the Protestant struggle to come to terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1870-1900 Cambridge, 1979.

    Morton, Peter, The vital science: biology and the literary imagination, 1860-1900. 1984.

    Oldroyd, David R. Darwinian Impacts, Milton Keynes, 1980.

    Passmore, John. 'Darwin's Impact on British Metaphysics' Victorian Studies, vol. 3 1960 pp. 41-54.

    Richards, E. 'Will the Real Charles Darwin Please Stand Up', New Scientist, 22 Dec. 1983, pp. 884-887.

    Richards, Robert J. Darwin and the emergence of evolution - theories in mind and behaviour. Chicago, 1987.

    Seward, C. ed. Darwin and Modern Science: Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of Charles Darwin and of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Publication of The Origin of Species. Cambridge, 1909.

    Shapin, S. and B. Barnes, 'Darwin and Social Darwinism: Purity and History', in B. Barnes and S. Shapin eds. Natural order: historical studies of scientific culture, 1979, pp. 125-142.

    White, Michael & Gribbin, John. Darwin: A life in science London, 1995.

    Willey, Basil. Darwin and Butler: Two versions of Evolution London, 1960.

    Young, Robert. Darwin's Metaphor: Nature's Place in Victorian Culture Cambridge, 1985.


    Created 2002