The book is a complete biography of Charles Robert Darwin with detailed information about all aspects of his life in the context of Victorian England. It starts with some notes about his pedigree and an account of his schooldays in Shrewsbury after which his experiences at the universities in Edinburg and Cambridge are described. The famous voyage of HMS Beagle that lasted nearly five years is documented as well as his evolution from a young gentleman intended for the cloth to one of the best-known naturalists of our planet. The genesis of his theory of evolution culminating in the publication of his masterpiece on the origin of species is discussed at length, as are all his other works and the reception thereof during his lifetime. The book also describes Darwin’s interactions with the geologist Charles Lyell, the botanists Joseph Dalton Hooker and Asa Gray, the anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley as well as many other famous and influential 19th century individuals. It describes the influence of grandfather Erasmus the Poet as well as Charles’s views about marriage, the church, and British society.
