THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Darwin, Charles ___ 1809-1882 ___ British
___ scientist
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Darwin was a great scientist, and
is considered the father of evolutionary theory. He was born in Shrewsbury,
England, but his mother died when he was eight, and he left home at 16 to
study medicine at Edinburgh University. Rejecting the medical profession,
though, he went to Cambridge to prepare for Holy Orders. However, this line
didn't suit him either, and he accepted an invitation to serve as unpaid
naturalist on a five year scientific expedition aboard the HMS Beagle. After
returning, in 1839, Darwin married his cousin Emma Wedgwood. In 1842, they
moved to Down House at Downe in Kent, where they lived for the rest of their
lives, bringing up 10 children, of whom only seven survived beyond puberty.
Darwin worked at Down House, living off his inherited money, reading and
researching widely (including a long study on barnacles). Despite sometimes
being incapacitated by illnesses, he established reputations in the fields
of taxonomy, geology and the distribution of flora and fauna. It was not
until 1859, after painstaking consideration, that he finally published his
famous theory on natural selection in 'The Origin of the Species by Means
of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle
for Life'. And it took him another 12 years to publish 'The Descent of Man
and Selection in Relation to Sex'. It was Darwin's research and thought
processes during the five years on board the Beagle that was to lead to
these revolutionary theories, and, consequently, the journal he kept during
that voyage has great historic and scientific importance.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1831-1836 ___ maritime travel weather
nature science geology Ecuador Brazil Argentina Chile Tahiti NewZealand
WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
etext
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Natural
History Museum
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Voyage of the Beagle
May 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |