Annie’s Box: Charles Darwin, his Daughter and Human Evolution - Hardcover

Keynes, Randal

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841150606 ISBN 13: 9781841150604

Verlag: Fourth Estate, 2001

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Críticas:

The box itself is a writing case covered in red morocco leather that belonged to Charles Darwin's eldest daughter, Annie, who died of tuberculosis in 1851, when she was only 10. Within are compartments containing a yellow ribbon decorated with glass beads, feather writing quills stained at their tips with ink, sealing wax, a lock of fine brown hair and a map of a churchyard inscribed, "Annie Darwin's Grave at Malvern". Randal Keynes, Charles Darwin's great-great grandson, has also discovered in the box a new way of telling the origins of Darwin's evolutionary theory, and how "Darwin disproved the Bible". This is family history in a social context, portraying Darwin not just against the background of the Victorian age (which has been done before, many times), but as a son, husband, father and, indeed, great-great grandfather. It is a profoundly moving book for a parent to read. Keynes does not say that Darwin's grief at Annie's death caused the theory of evolution, but that there was consolation in theory, as there is in philosophy: death is a natural process. "Charles' life and his science were all of a piece," Keynes announces at the outset. It is the achievement of this brilliant, accomplished history - itself a work of genius - to make one wonder how so many accounts of scientific genius manage to write families out of the story entirely. (On a novelty note, this is one of the few books to have its own website: www.anniesbox.co.uk)

Reseña del editor:

The story of the personal tragedy that lay behind Darwin’s revolutionary understanding of man’s place in nature.

Darwin’s eldest daughter Annie died when she was only ten years old. In the writing case are keepsakes of her life that cast precious light on Darwin’s work and on his love for his wife and children. Taking Annie’s story as his starting point Randal Keynes brings together science and humanity in a ground-breaking book that makes a major contribution to our understanding of Charles Darwin.

Randal Keynes, Darwin’s great-great-grandson and the current guardian of Annie’s box, conjures up a world in which great thinkers – including Carlyle, Babbage and George Eliot – were struggling with ideas that were to shake mankind to its core. At the forefront was Darwin himself, whose thinking about evolution and human nature was profoundly influenced by his life with his family, vividly pictured in this intimate portrait of the man and his private world.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Fourth Estate
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1841150606
• ISBN 13: 9781841150604
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352