Darwin: a biography lifts the curtain on the private life of one of science’s most controversial pioneers
Darwin: a biography
Janet Browne
Princeton University Press, $35.00
Charles Darwin had it in for the iguanas of the Galapagos Islands.
When the 26-year-old naturalist encountered marine iguanas on the island of San Cristóbal in 1835, he repeatedly threw these “most disgusting and clumsy lizards” into the ocean to test their preference for water. He later described pulling the tails of their terrestrial cousins on Isla Isabela. Earthlings, he noted, were “ugly animals” who had a “singularly stupid appearance.”
These antics, unbecoming for one of the founding fathers of modern biologyare among the many curveballs that science historian Janet Browne throws Darwin: a biography. The book, an abridged version of Browne’s two longer biographies of Darwin, distills the beloved naturalist’s rich and complicated life into 624 pages.
Readers first meet a young Darwin fascinated by collecting beetles and mourning the death of his mother. While his hobby helped Darwin perfect the techniques he relied on in his career, the loss of his mother inspired lifelong hypochondria, Browne suggests.
It doesn’t take long to arrive at what is perhaps the most pivotal moment in Darwin’s life: his voyage on the HMS. Beagle. This nearly five-year journey around the world provided Darwin with the observations, specimens and world experience necessary to write his magnum opus, On the origin of speciesdecades later.
Browne makes it clear that Darwin’s origins were fraught with privilege. His wealthy upbringing gave him access to the people and services that made such a journey possible. The invitation of a Cambridge University professor to join the team “subtly revealed the power of the old boys’ network,” Browne writes.
Meanwhile, an inheritance from Darwin’s mother put the wind in the sails by paying for the food, lodging and preparation of the specimens. The fact that Darwin could seek warrants from his father when he was abroad, which has sometimes been overlooked by historians, “was only made possible by the great expansion of the financial network of the British Empire”, writes Browne.
In this sense, Darwin’s role as a marine naturalist highlights the extent to which Victorian England’s obsession with natural history fueled its imperial agenda. This Darwin shot, skinned, and dissected across the southern hemisphere, often relying on hired, uncredited help. “Like other collectors of the time, he considered himself possessed of the right to take the material as he pleased,” Browne writes.
Although a watershed moment, the trip was a mere incident in the naturalist’s 73 years. Browne goes on to detail how Darwin raised a family and built a reputation in the natural sciences, sparking controversy along the way. To prevent his theory of evolution from being sidelined, Darwin “co-authored” a paper on the subject with rival naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. Darwin added and published an essay that Wallace had written without Wallace’s knowledge. This is one of many controversies surrounding the possible publication of On the origin of species in 1859.
By the end of Browne’s biography, we recognize the Darwin most people know from textbooks: the thick-browed, bearded scholar with an impressively long bibliography. Much of the book draws on Darwin’s professional work, but the most profound insights come from his personal correspondence, diaries, and notes. These documents reveal the man behind these theories. There is the agnostic lover at odds with his future wife over her belief in God. The grieving father is dealing with the deaths of three of his seven children. And the bitter author bristles at unfavorable book reviews.
Darwin: a biography is neither a love letter nor a scathing critique. Instead, it offers insight into Darwin the Human, a character often pushed out of conversations by Darwin the Scientist. Browne paints a portrait of a man who laughed, cried, and weaved his way through the Victorian era as much as he informed it. A dedicated reader will surely find an enjoyable experience in becoming acquainted with Browne’s Darwin. That is, unless it’s an iguana.
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