Researchers reveal Charles Darwin's lost library for the first time

For the first time since his death in 1882, Charles Darwin's impressive library has been virtually reassembled to reveal the multitude of books, pamphlets and periodicals cited and read by the influential naturalist.

Author of numerous works, Darwin is perhaps best known for his 1859 book, “On the Origin of Species,” which introduced the world to the fundamental scientific concept of evolution.

In honor of Darwin's 215th birthday on February 12, the research team behind the Darwin Online project released a 300-page catalog that compiles the 7,400 original titles and 13,000 volumes originally owned by Darwin.

The catalog includes 9,300 links to copies of the library's content that are freely available online, inviting the public to peruse what Darwin read.

“This unprecedentedly detailed look at Darwin's complete library allows you to appreciate more than ever that he was not an isolated figure working alone, but an expert of his time, drawing on the sophisticated science, scholarship and other knowledge of thousands of people. Indeed, the size and variety of works in the library manifest the extraordinary extent of Darwin's investigation into the work of others,” said project leader Dr John van Wyhe, historian of science at the National University of Singapore.

Reuniting a lost library

When Darwin was alive, he kept meticulous records of his library, including a 426-page handwritten “Catalogue of the Library of Charles Darwin” compiled in 1875. Initially, after Darwin's death, his library was preserved and recorded. But over time, much of its content was lost or ended up elsewhere.

Two main collections of 1,480 books were kept at Cambridge University and at Down House, Darwin's family home in Downe, England, which remains open to the public. But the collections included only about 15% of the original library.

After receiving letters from researchers and the public inquiring about specific titles from Darwin's library, van Wyhe and his colleagues began the project to virtually recreate it in 2007.

“Scholars have been researching Darwin’s life and work for more than a century,” said van Wyhe. “One of the most important elements in understanding Darwin’s theories are his sources – the publications of others that he used in his research.”

Institutions such as Down House museum, Cambridge University Library and Christ's College Cambridge, as well as private collections, were used to locate the materials during the painstaking 18-year process.

Despite his disciplined record keeping, Darwin used abbreviated or vague forms to refer to periodicals and pamphlets in his collection, with some lacking authors, dates, or sources.

The project team examined every piece of paper found during the search, examining handwritten family documents and letters, Darwin's reading notebooks, his wife's diaries and lists of scholars written a century ago. By comparing all the documents, researchers found thousands of previously unknown titles, including bound books and unbound volumes and pamphlets, and traced the journey of titles sold at auction over the past 100 years.

“There were about 5,000 little detective stories – trying to figure out which author or article Darwin was quoting – it’s a joy to strike gold and find the exact source he was referring to,” van Wyhe said. “We can now show that he originally had much more in his impressive library.”

A surprising collection

Darwin naturally had a wealth of titles related to his main scientific interests, such as biology and geology. He possessed a copy of an article authored by the ornithologist John James Audubon called “Account of the Habits of the Vulture (Vultura aura), particularly with a view to expanding the opinion generally held concerning its extraordinary power of smell.

The article, sold at auction in 1975, served as inspiration for one of Darwin's investigations while sailing on HMS Beagle. He was hired in 1831 as a naturalist aboard the ship and traveled throughout South America and neighboring islands, including the Galapagos, to study and collect plants and animals.

He owned a copy of “Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa,” authored by Paul Du Chaillu after the zoologist became the first European to describe gorillas in the wild during expeditions to Africa in the 1850s. Darwin's collection also included a German periodical that revealed the first published photographs of bacteria in 1877.

But the naturalist's library contained “multitudes,” demonstrating his thirst for knowledge, van Wyhe said. Darwin also read philosophers such as John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte, and had a number of works on psychology, religion, art, history, travel, agriculture and animal husbandry and behavior.

Almost half of the books were written in French, German, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Latin, Spanish and Swedish – a surprising revelation given that Darwin was known as a poor linguist with a bad ear for languages, van Wyhe said.

“He was a very educated person who learned ancient Greek and Latin at school, as well as French,” van Wyhe said. “He later learned Spanish and some Portuguese for the Beagle voyage and taught himself (with dictionaries) to read German and Italian and somehow learned other languages ​​in the same way. This shows how determined he was to discover what other men of science had published and to extract theory-relevant information from it.”

There is also evidence that Darwin read travel journals of explorers and missionaries to understand the gestures used by different ethnic groups.

And Darwin also liked to read novels. In 2019, a copy of Elizabeth Gaskell's “Wives and Daughters,” a series published as a book in 1866, appeared at auction, bearing a note that read: “This book was a great favorite of Charles Darwin and the last book to be read aloud to him.”

Exploring Darwin's eclectic library shows different sides of the scientist and will allow people to gain insight into who he was as a person, van Wyhe said.

“That’s exactly what the library can show,” he said. “Instead of basing understanding on authors that Darwin read and who are mentioned in biographies, etc., anyone can now browse their entire library. The impression this gives is that he was a voracious reader and read a surprising amount of works.”

Source: CNN Brasil

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