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As Darwin watches the preparation of the H.M.S. Beagle, he gets (understandably) excited. It also turns out that Captain FitzRoy was popular with the ladies. Darwin fears that he will get seasick on the voyage; it happens to everyone. Little did he know how bad it would be, and that raisins were all he could […]
Read MoreDaddy! I wanna go on the boat! The fateful decision is made September 1: Charles Darwin will indeed sail on the Beagle. Here’s some back-and-forth between Charles, his father, and Francis Beaufort, British Royal Navy Captain and hydrographer. Beaufort approved Darwin for the voyage, and his Wikipedia entry alone is testament to how interesting a […]
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Questions, questions. And lots of dead animals sent by post. Darwin was very inquisitive. He had to be. But this letter has a wonderful quality to it. He’s about to go collecting pigs’ jaws to count teeth. After all, that crafty Bechstein just can’t be trusted. Do birds wash their feet? Send out the servants! […]
Read MoreMan oh man, Charles had a passive-aggressive girlfriend! Charles had taken a liking to Fanny Owen through his Cambridge years, but as he departed on the Beagle voyage, well… She dumped him. Apparently he cared more about his beetle collection than about her. She wished she had given him a pin cushion for his instruments […]
Read MoreThis week: Stinky, stinky, 12-year-old Darwin Charles Darwin, at the age of 12, wrote several letters into a ‘Memorandum book’ while on vacation from school. He was staying at his family home in Shrewsbury, and apparently not bathing much. Ah, the days when washing was a chore! Please be advised that the spelling mistakes and […]
Read MoreYou can do it, Chas! Charles Darwin wanted what many academics still strive for: to get published! It was difficult for other reasons, in his case. Murray, the publisher, might reject a paper that runs “slap counter to Genesis.” Look out, Christendom, here comes Darwin! He mentions this concern in a letter below.
Read MoreDarwin on the Isle of Wight This week in Darwin’s correspondence: June 18, 1858, 150 years ago — Darwin writes to Charles Lyell from the Isle of Wight, a little island 3 miles from the South coast of England. This letter comes from Cambridge University’s Darwin Correspondence Project. This was no vacation. On June 18, […]
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