Charles Darwin, man of letters

The 12th volume of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin was published by Cambridge University Press yesterday, Wednesday 11 July, 2001.

The Darwin Correspondence Project, which edits and annotates the correspondence, was established in 1974 by Frederick Burkhardt and Sydney Smith, in order to publish the definitive edition of letters to and from Charles Darwin (1809-1882).

When complete, it will comprise approximately 32 volumes and will provide, for the first time, the full authoritative texts of Darwin's letters. The letters are accompanied by detailed explanatory footnotes and relevant supplementary materials, and offer unparalleled insight into Darwin's work and life.

The series has been described by the Sunday Times as 'one of the triumphs of post-war publishing in England' and by the Quarterly Review of Biology as 'a work of magisterial scholarship'.

It has been awarded the Founder's Medal of the Society of the History of Natural History, and the Modern Language Association of America's first Morton N Cohen Award for a distinguished edition of letters.

It contains nearly 5000 letters written between 1821 and 1864. They encompass Darwin's childhood, university education, his round the world voyage on HMS Beagle, the lengthy gestation of his theories, the publication of The Origin of Species and the controversy it generated, and the multi-faceted work of his mature years on subjects as diverse as botany, sexual selection and human evolution.

The latest volume contains letters for 1864, when Darwin, despite continuing illness, was carrying out botanical experiments and working on his book, The Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication. The volume sheds light on the worldwide reception of Darwin's theory of evolution, with letters from correspondents in the United States and Germany. The letters also reveal how the continuing controversy generated by the theory in Britain was heightened by the award of the Royal Society's prestigious Copley Medal to Darwin towards the end of the year.

Charles Darwin - A life in letters

From the outset of his scientific career, Darwin's work was heavily dependent on correspondence. Letter writing and reading were a major, and often exhausting, part of Darwin's daily routine.

He discussed his ideas in correspondence with other notable scientific figures such as the geologist Charles Lyell, the botanists Asa Gray and Joseph Dalton Hooker, the zoologist Thomas Henry Huxley and the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace.

His desire to amass as much evidence as possible to support his theory of evolution brought him into contact with an unusually varied cross-section of Victorian society - gardeners and nurserymen, diplomats, army officers, colonial officials and others, who provided him with observations on the flora, fauna and peoples of the world.

Darwin's letters reveal much about him as a man - his political ideas, his work as a magistrate and supporter of local charities, his business investments and his personal relationships with friends and family. He was an affectionate husband and father, showing deep concern about the welfare and education of his children. His correspondence with ordinary people sheds light on such non-elite social groups as pigeon-breeders.

The work of the Project

The Darwin Correspondence Project is based at Cambridge University Library, which houses the largest single collection of Darwin's letters (around 9000), as well as most of his other papers (donated to the Library in 1942 by Darwin's family).

During its first 10 years, the Project conducted an exhaustive search for correspondence, locating and obtaining copies of 6000 items from over 200 libraries and private collections in over 20 countries. The Project now has copies of approximately 14,500 letters exchanged between Darwin and nearly 2000 correspondents.

As the search proceeded, work started on transcribing the letters. In many cases, dates had to be established for the letters and recipients identified (Darwin often addressed his correspondents as "Dear Sir" or "Madam"). The entire collection was transcribed into electronic format, creating a computerised archive that forms the basis for editorial work.

Transcription of the letter texts was largely completed by the mid-1980s, although 20 to 50 new letters are discovered each year. The transcripts are as faithful to the originals as possible, complete with misspellings, and are held in electronic master files on a mainframe computer belonging to Cambridge University Library.

The first volume of the Correspondence, covering the years 1821 to 1836, was published in 1985. In the same year A Calendar of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin was published, containing brief summaries of the letters, biographical information on correspondents, and other materials useful for research in advance of the published volumes. A second edition, updated to include 500 previously unknown letters, was published in 1994.

Electronic publishing

In addition to the publication of hard-copy volumes, the Project is also taking steps to make the correspondence available in electronic format. A prototype online calendar has been mounted on the internet and serves as a pilot project for the eventual electronic dissemination of the main body of the correspondence. In the future, both hard-copy and internet-ready material will be produced from a multi-purpose electronic database.

Further information Visit the Darwin Correspondence Project web site and the Darwin archive web site in Cambridge University Library.