



Produced by Sue Asscher






THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN

By Charles Darwin


Including An Autobiographical Chapter


Edited By His Son Francis Darwin




VOLUME I




PREFACE

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. Thus it comes
about that the chief part of the book falls into chapters whose titles
correspond to the names of his books.

In arranging the letters I have adhered as far as possible to
chronological sequence, but the character and variety of his researches
make a strictly chronological order an impossibility. It was his habit
to work more or less simultaneously at several subjects. Experimental
work was often carried on as a refreshment or variety, while books
entailing reasoning and the marshalling of large bodies of facts were
being 