Charles Darwin, perhaps the most influential scientist in history, maintained a massive personal library throughout his working life. Until now, 85 percent of its content was unknown or unpublished.

This year coincides with Darwin’s 215th birthday. Complete Works of Charles Darwin OnlineA research project led by Dr John van Wych from the Department of Biological Sciences at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has published the 300-page online catalog of Darwin’s Complete Personal Library, containing 7,400 titles and items, including books, in 13,000 volumes. brochures and magazines. Previous listings included only 15 percent of his entire collection. The Darwin Library has also been virtually reassembled, with 9,300 references to copies of the works freely available on the Internet.

“An unprecedentedly detailed examination of Darwin’s entire library allows us to appreciate more than ever that he was not an isolated individual working alone, but rather an expert of his time who drew on the complex science, research, and other knowledge of thousands of people. Indeed, the The size and diversity of the works demonstrate the extraordinary amount of research Darwin did on the work of others,” said Dr van Weyge.

Discovery of the entire Darwin library

After Darwin’s death in 1882, much of Darwin’s library was preserved and catalogued, but many other items were dispersed or lost, and details of the vast majority of its contents have never been published until now. For many years, scientists believed that Darwin’s library contained 1,480 books, based on those held in two major collections, the University of Cambridge and Down House.

Over 18 years, the Darwin Online project has uncovered thousands of obscure references to Darwin in Darwin’s own catalogs and in lists of items such as pamphlets and magazines originally held in his library. Each reference needed its own detective story to discover the publications Darwin had hastily jotted down. In addition, missing details such as the author, date and source of the clippings in thousands of records in old catalogues were revealed for the first time.

The primary source of information that helped uncover the original content is the 426-page “Charles Darwin Library Catalog” manuscript compiled in 1875. A careful comparison of their abbreviated records revealed 440 unknown titles originally held in the library. An inventory of his handicrafts after his death recorded 2,065 bound books and an unknown number of unbound volumes and pamphlets. 133 titles and 289 volumes of mostly non-scientific literature were recorded in the living room. Surprisingly, the heritage valuer estimated the value of the “Science Library, i.e. books relating to science” at just £30 12s. [приблизно 2000 фунтів стерлінгів на сьогодні]. Indeed, the value of all the books was only £66 10s. [приблизно £ 4400 сьогодні]. Today, every book belonging to Darwin is very expensive for collectors.

Other sources of information that helped create a complete Darwin library were pamphlet lists, Darwin’s reading books, Emma Darwin’s diaries, the Catalog of Books given to the Cambridge School of Botany in 1908, and the 30-volume Correspondence. Darwin. Items that still exist but were never included in Darwin’s library lists include his unbound materials in the Cambridge University Library, books now in other institutional collections, private collections, and books sold at auction over the last 130 years. The combination of these and many other sources of evidence made it possible to reconstruct Darwin’s library.

For example, Darwinian transcription of an 1826 paper by ornithologist John James Audubon: “A Description of the Habits of the Turkey Buzzard (vulture aura) was sold in 1975 specifically to refute the generally accepted view that it had extraordinary olfactory powers. Darwin investigated this question during a trip. Beagle ships and noted that he read Audubon’s reviews in the Lost Alapagos notebooks. In 2019, a copy of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel ” Wives and daughters” 1880. He writes: “This book was Charles Darwin’s favorite book and the last book he read aloud.”