Charles Darwin—arguably the most influential man of science in history, accumulated a vast personal library throughout his working life. Until now, 85% of its contents were unknown or unpublished.
Charles Darwin—arguably the most influential man of science in history, accumulated a vast personal library throughout his working life. Until now, 85% of its contents were unknown or unpublished.
This year, coinciding with Darwin’s 215th birthday, The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, the scholarly project helmed by Dr. John van Wyhe at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Biological Sciences, has released an online 300-page catalog detailing Darwin’s complete personal library, with 7,400 titles across 13,000 volumes and items including books, pamphlets and journals.
Previous lists only had 15% of his whole collection. Darwin’s library has also been virtually re-assembled with 9,300 links to copies of the works freely available online.
„This unprecedentedly detailed view of Darwin’s complete library allows one to appreciate more than ever that he was not an isolated figure working alone but an expert of his time building on the sophisticated science and studies and other knowledge of thousands of people. Indeed, the size and range of works in the library makes manifest the extraordinary extent of Darwin’s research into the work of others,“ said Dr. van Wyhe.
After his death in 1882, much of Darwin’s library was preserved and cataloged, but many other items were dispersed or lost, and details of the vast majority of the contents have never been published until now. For many years, scholars have referred to Darwin’s library as containing 1,480 books, based on those that survive in the two main collections, the University of Cambridge and Down House.
Over 18 years the Darwin Online project has identified thousands of Darwin’s obscure references in his own catalogs and lists of items such as pamphlets and journals that were originally in his library.
