For the first time, details of Charles Darwin's vast private library, from his treatises on epileptic guinea pigs to the novels of his admirer Elizabeth Gaskell, are revealed in full for the first time.
The project has involved nearly 20 years of detective work, tracking down thousands of books, magazines, pamphlets and articles in naturalist libraries.
John Van Wye, the academic who led this “overwhelming” effort, said it demonstrated Darwin's extraordinary range of research into the work of others.
“It also shows what an insane eclectic Darwin was,” Van Wye said. “There's a huge amount of stuff that might be American or German news clippings about ducks and grasshoppers. That's the fun part, it's not a formal book, it's other stuff… all of that comes together and we all know… We create theories and publications.”
The 300-page catalog published by Darwin Online details 7,400 titles across 13,000 journals, brochures, and reviews.
Some of the books date back to Darwin's student days, including Oliver Goldsmith's History of England (1821), for which he won an award, and the headmaster's textbook on ancient geography.
Researchers sometimes used auction records to piece together the story.
For example, auction sales records show that Darwin is the author of ornithologist John James Audubon's 1826 article, “An explanation of the habits of the turkey buzzard (Vulture aura), which in particular explodes the generally accepted opinion about that bird.'' It has been revealed that he owned a copy of “From a Point of View''. The amazing power of smell. ”
In 2019, a copy of Elizabeth Gaskell's 1880 novel Wives and Daughters went up for auction. A note inside said, “This book was a great favorite of Charles Darwin and was the last book I read to him.''
Mr Van Wye said the previous list of what was in Darwin's libraries only covered about 15 per cent of what was actually in the library.
According to the new list, Darwin wrote on a dizzying variety of subjects, including biology, geology, philosophy, psychology, religion, agriculture, art, history, and travel.
More than half of the works are in English, and the rest are in languages such as German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Danish.
One of them was a German periodical that published the first photographs of bacteria.
Other papers in the library have titles such as “The Anatomy of the Four-Legged Chicken,” “The Epileptic Guinea Pig,” and “The Abominable Colorado Grasshopper.”
The project includes a virtual reconstruction of the library and includes 9,300 links to freely available copies of works.
His supporters say no one has influenced our knowledge of the natural world more than Darwin.
His 1859 masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, established a theory to explain how life on Earth evolved. This book changed the world and is considered an important book then and now.
Van Wai, a science historian at the University of Singapore and director of Darwin Online, points out that all of this suggests that Darwin was “not an isolated figure working alone, but rather a group of sophisticated science, research and other sources of knowledge. It shows that he was an expert at the time, building on the Thousands of people.
“The scale and scope of the works in the library reveal the extraordinary scope of Darwin's research into the works of others.”
The library's publication coincides with Darwin's 215th birthday on February 12th.
Although a vast amount of material has been written about Darwin, this is the first time that his entire library has been itemized.
Van Wye said: Darwin is a figure who has been written about more than most historical figures…There's a joke about it, we call it the Darwin industry. ”
