For those engaged in research on Darwin or his circle, the Darwin Library is an invaluable resource. Originally donated by Darwin's son Francis to the library of the Botany School and now deposited in Cambridge University Library, it contains handwritten scribbles on book pages, note-filled scraps of paper pinned to back covers and personal inscriptions from mentors such as J. S. Henslow. First published in 1908, this catalogue to the Darwin Library collection, with an introduction by Francis Darwin, provides a gateway into Darwin's thought, research and intellectual context via his personal books and pamphlets. The book lists works in English and other languages, and contains bibliographic information, including the original publisher and date of publication, together with details of translations.

During his famous Beagle voyage, Darwin collected rocks, fossils and other geological specimens. No previous geologist had amassed such a detailed set of data. He identified raised beaches and remains of marine organisms high above the sea, understanding their significance as evidence of the uprising of landmasses. He also witnessed an earthquake and volcanic eruptions, concluding that both are related to movements of molten rock deep in the Earth. In this 1909 lecture, Sir Archibald Geikie, then President of the Royal Society, outlines Darwin's geological findings and explains how these underpinned his developing ideas. We learn of Darwin's theory of coral reef formation, and his fascination with the activities of earthworms. Finally the lecture considers the importance of Darwin's geological studies in formulating his theory of evolution by natural selection, leading to his masterpiece On the Origin of Species.

This book, the first of three-volumes detailing the life of Charles Darwin, published five years after his death, was edited by his son Francis, who was his father's collaborator in experiments in botany and who after his death took on the responsibility of overseeing the publication of his remaining manuscript works and letters. In the preface to the first volume, Francis Darwin explains his editorial principles: 'In choosing letters for publication I have been largely guided by the wish to illustrate my father's personal character. But his life was so essentially one of work, that a history of the man could not be written without following closely the career of the author.' Among the family history, anecdotes and reminiscences of scientific colleagues is a short autobiographical essay which Charles Darwin wrote for his children and grandchildren, rather than for publication. This account of Darwin the man has never been bettered.

This book, the third of three-volumes detailing the life of Charles Darwin, published five years after his death, was edited by his son Francis, who was his father's collaborator in experiments in botany and who after his death took on the responsibility of overseeing the publication of his remaining manuscript works and letters. In the preface to the first volume, Francis Darwin explains his editorial principles: 'In choosing letters for publication I have been largely guided by the wish to illustrate my father's personal character. But his life was so essentially one of work, that a history of the man could not be written without following closely the career of the author.' Among the family history, anecdotes and reminiscences of scientific colleagues is a short autobiographical essay which Charles Darwin wrote for his children and grandchildren, rather than for publication. This account of Darwin the man has never been bettered.

Written in collaboration with his son Francis, a notable botanist, this 1880 book builds on Darwin's earlier investigations into climbing plants, orchids, insectivorous plants, flower variety, and the processes of fertilisation. This detailed study of many species from seed to mature plant further develops Darwin's work on adaptation and evolution, with the aim of collating the results of individual studies into common factors applicable to plants in general. Particular emphasis is given to analysis and investigation of the process here termed circumnutation, the movement of the stem of the plant in order to direct the head in certain directions. This is seen as of paramount importance, with the conclusion that it is modification of this feature that has enabled plants to adapt and evolve so diversely. The authors also note similarities between plants and animals, such as sensitivity to touch and habit of action at certain times.

Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) is remembered today as much for his profound influence on the young Charles Darwin as for his own work as a geologist: Darwin read the three volumes of his Principles of Geology (1830-3) as they came out, and was greatly interested in Lyell's theory of the huge effects over geological time of an accumulation of tiny, almost unobservable changes. The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man was published in 1863, and went into three editions in that year alone. The work synthesises the then existing evidence for the earliest humans in Europe and North America and - as indicated by its subtitle, With Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation - discusses Darwin's theory and 'the bearing of this hypothesis on the different races of mankind and their connection with other parts of the animal kingdom.'

William Bateson (1861-1926) began his academic career working on variation in animals in the light of evolutionary theory. He was inspired by the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's work on plant hybridisation to pursue further experimental work in what he named 'genetics'. He realised that Mendel's results could help to solve difficult biological questions and controversies which others had glossed over, and to challenge assumptions underlying evolution as it was understood at the time. After two years as Professor of Biology at Cambridge he left in 1910 to become Director of the newly founded John Innes Institute. Bateson's argumentative personality and unorthodox approach did not make him popular, and his reputation declined after his death. Was Bateson misunderstood? Was evolution misunderstood? This 1928 volume - including a substantial memoir by Bateson's wife - gives readers access to selected papers and addresses and allows them to consider him afresh.

These two short monographs, published under the auspices of the Palaeontographical Society in 1851 and 1854, show Charles Darwin as a meticulous research scientist, poring over fossils collected by himself and other enthusiasts in Britain and in Europe. The first volume is devoted to the Lepadidae, and the second to the Balanidae and Verrucidae (all types of barnacle, members of the infraclass Cirripedia). Darwin's interest in barnacles had first arisen in his student days in Edinburgh, under the guidance of Robert Grant, and increased during his detailed work in dissecting and classifying the specimens he had collected on the Beagle voyage. The publication of his findings cemented his reputation as a expert taxonomist and biologist, and his observations over eight years of the minute differences between males, females and an apparent hermaphroditic stage of development lent support to his developing theory of evolution.

This second edition of The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was edited by his son Francis Darwin and published in 1890. As Sir Francis notes in his brief preface, because the first edition did not sell out in Charles Darwin's lifetime, 'he had no opportunity of publishing the material collected with a view to a second edition.' This material, in the form of 'a mass of letters, extracts from and references to books' was utilised in the second edition, as were Darwin's pencilled corrections in his own volume of the first. The book is a study of the muscular movements of the face (both human and animal) triggered by the emotions being felt - a 'physical' response to a 'mental' sensation. Darwin's detailed analysis of what actually happens to a body in a state of fear, or joy, or anger is illustrated by photographic images.

Darwin had long been fascinated by insectivorous plants, from the native British sundews and bladderworts to the exotic pinguiculas and nepenthes which he encountered during the Beagle voyage. Growing in environments low in soil nutrients, their highly specialised ways of obtaining enough food, including the capability for fast movement in the case of the Venus flytrap, were evidence of evolutionary adaptation. But he was also interested in what food they needed, and whether they would be selective when offered a varied diet; and how did the flytrap close its trap on its prey? Darwin conducted a range of simple but ingenious experiments on his collection of insectivores and observed and noted the results of each with his customary meticulousness. The results can be seen in this book, which remains of enormous interest to anyone whose imagination has been fired by these strange and beautiful plants.

The development of Charles Darwin's views on evolution by natural selection has fascinated biologists since the 1859 publication of his landmark text On The Origin of Species. His experiences, observations and reflections during and after his pivotal journey on the Beagle during 1831-36 were of critical importance. Darwin was not, however, a man to be rushed. While his autobiography claims that the framework of his theory was laid down by 1839, its first outline sketch did not emerge until 1842. That essay was heavily edited, with many insertions and erasures. It formed the vital kernel of his more expansive but also unpolished and unpublished essay of 1844. Following careful editing by his son Francis, both essays were published in 1909, and are reproduced here. Reading these side by side, and together with the Origin, permits us to scrutinise selection and evolution truly in action.

In his introduction, Darwin reveals that for many years he had no intention of publishing his notes on this topic, 'as I thought that I should thus only add to the prejudices against my views'. By 1871, he felt that his fellow scientists would show a greater openness of mind to his arguments, even when taken to their logical conclusion and applied to the descent of man from the apes - the aspect of his theory which had been so widely mocked since the notorious question asked by Bishop Wilberforce at the Oxford debate of 1860: was it through his grandmother or his grandfather that Thomas Huxley, Darwin's champion, considered himself descended from a monkey? However, the book's focus on the area of sexual selection and the evolutionary importance of secondary sexual characteristics across the animal kingdom meant that the book was received without the public outrage that Darwin had feared.

In his introduction, Darwin reveals that for many years he had no intention of publishing his notes on this topic, 'as I thought that I should thus only add to the prejudices against my views'. By 1871, he felt that his fellow scientists would show a greater openness of mind to his arguments, even when taken to their logical conclusion and applied to the descent of man from the apes - the aspect of his theory which had been so widely mocked since the notorious question asked by Bishop Wilberforce at the Oxford debate of 1860: was it through his grandmother or his grandfather that Thomas Huxley, Darwin's champion, considered himself descended from a monkey? However, the book's focus on the area of sexual selection and the evolutionary importance of secondary sexual characteristics across the animal kingdom meant that the book was received without the public outrage that Darwin had feared.

This book, published in 1881, was the result of many years of experimentation and observation by Darwin in the open-air laboratory of his garden at Down House in Kent. As he wrote in his introduction, the subject of soil disturbance by worms 'may appear an insignificant one, but we shall see that it possesses some interest'. He goes on to demonstrate the immensity - in size and over time - of the accumulated tiny movements of soil by earthworms, and their vital role in aerating the soil and breaking down vegetable material to keep the topsoil, the growing medium for all plant life and thus vital to human existence, fertile and healthy. At a time when there is huge interest in growing food organically and without using artificial fertilisers, Darwin's insights are as important, and his descriptions of his experiments as fascinating, as they were in the late nineteenth century.

Mary Somerville (1780 1872) would have been a remarkable woman in any age, but as an acknowledged leading mathematician and astronomer at a time when the education of most women was extremely restricted, her achievement was extraordinary. Laplace famously told her that 'There have been only three women who have understood me. These are yourself, Mrs Somerville, Caroline Herschel and a Mrs Greig of whom I know nothing.' Mary Somerville was in fact Mrs Greig. After (as she herself said) translating Laplace's work 'from algebra into common language', she wrote On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834). Her intention was to demonstrate the remarkable tendency of modern scientific discoveries 'to simplify the laws of nature, and to unite detached branches by general principles.' This and her next book, the two-volume Physical Geography, also reissued in this series, were enormously influential both within the scientific community and beyond.

Mary Somerville (1780 1872) would have been a remarkable woman in any age, but as an acknowledged leading mathematician and astronomer at a time when the education of most women was extremely restricted, her achievement was extraordinary. Laplace famously told her that 'there have been only three women who have understood me. These are yourself, Mrs Somerville, Caroline Herschel and a Mrs Greig of whom I know nothing.' Mary Somerville was in fact Mrs Greig. After (as she herself said) translating Laplace's work 'from algebra into common language', she wrote On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834), also reissued in this series. Her next book, the two-volume Physical Geography (1848), was a synthesis of geography, geology, botany, astronomy and zoology, drawing on the most recent discoveries in all these fields to present an overview of current understanding of the natural world and the Earth's place in the universe.

Mary Somerville (1780 1872) would have been a remarkable woman in any age, but as an acknowledged leading mathematician and astronomer at a time when the education of most women was extremely restricted, her achievement was extraordinary. Laplace famously told her that 'There have been only three women who have understood me. These are yourself, Mrs Somerville, Caroline Herschel and a Mrs Greig of whom I know nothing.' Mary Somerville was in fact Mrs Greig. After (as she herself said) translating Laplace's work 'from algebra into common language', she wrote On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834), also reissued in this series. Her next book, the two-volume Physical Geography (1848), was a synthesis of geography, geology, botany, astronomy and zoology, drawing on the most recent discoveries in all these fields to present an overview of current understanding of the natural world and the Earth's place in the universe.

Darwin's impetus for the experiments of which the results are recorded in this book was 'a mere accidental observation; and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seedlings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings of cross-fertilised parentage'. After eleven years of meticulous experimentation and observation, described in this volume, he was ready to publish in 1876 the detailed study which he regarded as a companion volume to his 1862 On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects. His 'first and most important of the conclusions which may be drawn ... is that cross-fertilisation is generally beneficial, and self-fertilisation injurious': this understanding is of course the basis of all modern plant breeding programmes.

John Pringle Nichol (1804-59) was a Scottish polymath whose major interests were economics and astronomy; he did much to popularise the latter by his writings. He became Regius Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow in 1836, and in the following year published Views of the Architecture of the Heavens which was immediately successful. George Eliot wrote in a letter of 1841, 'I have been revelling in Nichol's Architecture of the Heavens and Phenomena of the Solar System, and have been in imagination winging my flight from system to system, and from universe to universe ...' Nichol was a supporter of the nebular hypothesis - that stars form in massive and dense clouds of molecular hydrogen which are gravitationally unstable, and coalesce to smaller denser clumps, which then collapse and form stars - which in modified form is the model most widely accepted today.

William Carpenter (1813-85) was trained as a doctor; he was apprenticed to an eye surgeon, and later attended University College London and the University of Edinburgh, obtaining his M. D. in 1839. Rather than practising medicine, he became a teacher, specialising in neurology, and it was his work as a zoologist on marine invertebrates that brought him wide scientific recognition. His Principles of Mental Physiology, published in 1874, developed the ideas he had first expounded in the 1850s, and expounds the arguments for and against the two models of psychology then current - automatism, which assumed that the mind operates under the control of the physiology of the body for all human activity, and free will, 'an independent power, controlling and directing that activity.' Drawing on animal as well as human examples, his arguments, especially on the acquisition of mental traits in the individual, are much influenced by Darwin.

William Bateson claimed at the Darwin Centenary in 1909 that Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was 'the most brilliant and by far the most interesting of Darwin's opponents, whose works are at length emerging from oblivion.' Best remembered today as the author of the novels Erewhon and The Way of All Flesh, he also wrote on a range of subjects from translations of Homer to studies of evolutionary thought. In his Life and Habit (published in 1878) Butler contended that much of inheritance was based on habit making a feature ingrained, to the extent that it could pass between generations. However, he strongly contests Darwin's views on natural selection, and supports those of Lamarck - who he felt was unjustly overlooked in the scientific rush to acclaim Darwin - and of St George Mivart, whose On the Genesis of Species, published in 1871, was another blast against natural selection by a disenchanted Darwinist.

The geological writings of Hugh Miller (1802 56) did much to publicise this relatively new science. After an early career in banking in Scotland, Miller became editor of a newly founded Edinburgh newspaper, The Witness, in which he published a series of his own articles based on his geological research, a collection of which was issued as a book, The Old Red Sandstone, in 1841, and led to the Devonian geological period becoming known as the 'Age of the Fishes'. Footprints of the Creator (1849) described his reconstruction of the extinct fish he had discovered in the Old Red Sandstone and argued, on theological grounds, that their perfection of development disproved the current Lamarckian theory of evolution. The book, illustrated with woodcuts, was written partly as a response to the then anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1884), also reissued in this series.

'I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal & hard work; and I still think there is an eminently important difference'. Throughout 1869, Darwin continued to collect data for his two most significant books after Origin: The Descent of Man and Expression of the Emotions. Explorers, diplomats, and missionaries all over the world were politely encouraged to investigate, for example, how emotions such as surprise, anger and shame were expressed in different cultures. As Darwin's research on human evolution neared completion, he learned that Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of the theory, had begun to raise questions about its application to certain aspects of human development, attributing these to the action of a 'higher power'. In his correspondence, Wallace alluded to his belief in spiritualism, which he fully believed to be open to scientific investigation, but which gave Darwin much pause.

How have our emotions shaped the course of human history? And how have our experience and understanding of emotions evolved with us? We humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, who, as a species, have relied on calculation and intellect to survive. But many of the most important moments in our history had little to do with cold, hard facts and a lot to do with feelings. Events ranging from the origins of philosophy to the birth of the world's major religions, the fall of Rome, the Scientific Revolution, and some of the bloodiest wars that humanity has ever experienced can't be properly understood without understanding emotions. In A Human History of Emotion, Richard Firth-Godbehere takes readers on a fascinating and wide-ranging tour of the central and often under-appreciated role emotions have played in human societies around the world and throughout history - from Ancient Greece to Gambia, Japan, the Ottoman Empire, Britain, and beyond. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, art and religious history, A Human History of Emotion vividly illustrates how our understanding and experience of emotions has changed over time, and how our beliefs about feelings - and our feelings themselves - profoundly shaped us and the world we inhabit.

Nobel laureate Niko Tinbergen laid the foundations for the scientific study of animal behaviour with his work on causation, development, function and evolution. In this book, an international cast of leading animal biologists reflect on the enduring significance of Tinbergen's groundbreaking proposals for modern behavioural biology. It includes a reprint of Tinbergen's original article on the famous 'four whys' and a contemporary introduction, after which each of the four questions are discussed in the light of contemporary evidence. There is also a discussion of the wider significance of recent trends in evolutionary psychology and neuroecology to integrate the 'four whys'. With a foreword by one of Tinbergen's most prominent pupils, Aubrey Manning, this wide-ranging book demonstrates that Tinbergen's views on animal behaviour are crucial for modern behavioural biology. It will appeal to graduate students and researchers in animal behaviour, behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology.