Darwin in Conversation has been curated using the 15,000 letters Darwin wrote during his lifetime, the majority of which are housed at the University Library in Cambridge in the largest archive of Darwin-related material anywhere in the world.
The exhibition, which is free and open to all, draws on the 40-year mission of the Darwin Correspondence Project, also based at the Library, which since the 1970s, has worked tirelessly to transcribe and publish in print (and now digitally), every surviving letter that Charles Darwin wrote and received. The 30th and final volume of correspondence will be published in 2022 to coincide with the exhibition and mark the end of one of the largest and longest-running humanities projects anywhere in the world.
Darwin in Conversation shows how Darwin was the ultimate gatherer of information, seeking out anyone whose ideas, knowledge or insight might shape the naturalist’s own views, from members of the public and subject specialists all over the world, to some of the most famous names of 19th century science.
The exhibition will also dispel the myth of Charles Darwin as a lone theoretician sitting in Down House. Experiments and interaction with a wide range of people were key to his world-changing discoveries and theories, and the exhibition reveals Darwin as a complex, richly human individual whose ideas changed over time, informed as much by the frustrations of failure as the triumphs of success.
The last page of Darwin’s letter to Asa Gray outlining his theory of natural selection will go on display in Cambridge this summer.
The last page of Darwin’s letter to Asa Gray outlining his theory of natural selection will go on display in Cambridge this summer.
As well as many hugely valuable first editions of Darwin’s work, letters written on HMS Beagle, and examples of his globe-spanning correspondence, the exhibition will also put on display the draft letter where Darwin first outlines his theory of natural selection to Asa Gray; and a flirtatious letter from Sarah Owen to Darwin enclosing the gift of a jewelled hairpin. Letters such as these help to challenge our 21st century notions of Darwin as a bearded old and isolated genius, rather than the young, gossip-driven scientist who travelled the world both in person and via his correspondence.
The Darwin Correspondence Project is supported by the Evolution Education Trust and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
