IE summer or early autumn of 1859, Whitwell Elwior of the respectedBritish journal the Quarterly Review, was sent an advance copy of a new book by thenaturalist Charles Darwin. Elwihe book with i and agreed that it had merit, butfeared that the subject matter was too narrow to attract a wide audience. He urged Darwin towrite a book about pigeons instead. 「Everyone is ied in pigeons,」 he observedhelpfully.
Elwin』s sage advice was ignored, and On the in of Species by Means of NaturalSele, or the Preservation of Favoured Races iruggle for Life ublished in lateNovember 1859, priced at fifteen shillings. The first edition of 1,250 copies sold out on thefirst day. It has never been out of print, and scarcely out of troversy, in all the time si bad going for a man whose principal other i was earthworms and who, but for asingle impetuous decision to sail around the world, would very probably have passed his lifeas an anonymous try parson known for, well, for an i ihworms.
Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809,1in Shrewsbury, a sedate markettown in the west Midlands of England. His father rosperous and well-regardedphysi. His mother, who died when Charles was o, was the daughter of JosiahWedgwood, of pottery fame.
Darwin enjoyed every advantage of upbringing, but tinually pained his widowed fatherwith his lackluster academic performance. 「You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catg, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family,」 his father wrote in a li nearly always appears just about here in any review of Darwin』s early life. Although hisination was to natural history, for his father』s sake he tried to study medie at EdinburghUy but couldn』t bear the blood and suffering. The experience of witnessing aion on an uandably distressed child—this was in the days before ahetics, ofcourse—left him permaly traumatized. He tried law instead, but found that insupportablydull and finally managed, more or less by default, to acquire a degree in divinity fromCambridge.
A life in a rural vicarage seemed to await him when from out of the blue there came a moretempting offer. Darwin was io sail on the naval survey ship HMS Beagle, essentiallyas dinner pany for the captain, Robert FitzRoy, whose rank precluded his socializing withaher than a gentleman. FitzRoy, who was very odd, chose Darwin in part because heliked the shape of Darwin』s nose. (It betokened depth of character, he believed.) Darwin wasnot FitzRoy』s first choice, but got the nod when FitzRoy』s preferred panion dropped out.
From a twenty-first-tury perspective the two men』s most striking joiure was their1An auspicious date in history: on the same day iucky, Abraham Lin was born.
extreme youthfulness. At the time of sailing, FitzRoy was only twenty-three, Darwin justtwenty-two.
FitzRoy』s formal assig was to chart coastal waters, but his hobby—passion really—was to seek out evidence for a literal, biblical interpretation of creation. That Darwin wastrained for the ministry was tral to FitzRoy』s decision to have him aboard. That Darwinsubsequently proved to be not only liberal of view but less than wholeheartedly devoted toChristian fuals became a source of lasting fri between them.
Darwin』s time aboard HMS Beagle, from 1831 to 1836, was obviously the formativeexperience of his life, but also one of the most trying. He and his captain shared a small ,which 』t have been easy as FitzRoy was subject to fits of fury