Darwin, His Daughter & Human Evolution

Large Size Book, 1st printing. In a chest of drawers left by his grandmother, author Randal Keynes found the writing case of Charles Darwin's beloved daughter Annie, who died at the age of ten. Within the box, among the typical keepsakes of a Victorian girlhood, were the notes Darwin kept as he cared for Annie through her final illness. For Keynes, a great-great-grandson of Darwin, Annie's writing case became the point of entry into the story of Darwin's family life and its influence on the development of his revolutionary understanding of man's place in nature. Keynes takes us into the family's private world and draws on a wealth of previously unseen material to show Darwin at home and trace his private struggle with his faith. Particularly fascinating is the revealing portrait of Emma, Darwin's wife- a complex woman, both tolerant and devout- who was in many ways ahead of her time. Emma and Charles were close and loving parents, and it was by observing his children that Darwin gleaned many of his insights into man's animal origins as he worked secretly on his theory of evolution. What emerges with fresh charity in these pages is the importance of Darwin's life with his family in his deepest thinking, and how his home was his most treasured laboratory- the place where his ground-breaking ideas were formulated, and could be tested, on his most precious subjects- his ten children. When Annie fell ill, Darwin was at her bedside day and night, doing all he could for her, making copious notes about her deteriorating health, bringing her "beautifully good" tea. Keynes shows how the pain of her loss cast a shadow over Darwin's thinking about the natural world and the struggle for life. Her death also inflamed the mental turmoil over religion and the existence of God that he had experienced since his return from the voyage of HMS Beagle. As Darwin's theories continue to shape much of our thinking about the roots of human nature, Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution reveals the personal experience from which he drew his most deeply held ideas. Keynes's rare insight gives us a fuller picture of one of our most maverick thinkers we will never separate the scientist from his home and family again.…