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Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith (National Book Award Finalist)
Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith (National Book Award Finalist)
Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith (National Book Award Finalist)
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Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith (National Book Award Finalist)

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Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, his revolutionary tract on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859. Nearly 150 years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between the scientific and religious communities. Challenges about teaching the theory of evolution in schools occur annually all over the country. This same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important part in his marriage: his wife, Emma, was quite religious, and her faith gave Charles a lot to think about as he worked on a theory that continues to spark intense debates.

Deborah Heiligman's new biography of Charles Darwin is a thought-provoking account of the man behind evolutionary theory: how his personal life affected his work and vice versa. The end result is an engaging exploration of history, science, and religion for young readers.

Charles and Emma is a 2009 National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 6, 2009
ISBN9781429934954
Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith (National Book Award Finalist)
Author

Deborah Heiligman

Deborah Heiligman has written many books for children, including National Book Award Finalist Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith; Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winner Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers; and The Boy Who Loved Math. She lives with her family in New York City.

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Rating: 3.9245283264150945 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    my VOYA ratings: 4Q, 2P-listened to this on audiobook-A well-written and researched book that focuses on an interesting perspective (that of Charles and Emma Darwin's relationship and marriage intertwined with his scientific research), "Charles and Emma" will nonetheless likely be one that would take a serious push from a teacher or librarian for teens to read. Even then, I'm not sure many would enjoy it or want to finish. Though the relationship angle is unexpected and very sweet (they truly made a great and supportive pair, neither seeming to be able to exist without the other), it isn't a strong enough tactic to really grab teens' attention, in my opinion. We are talking about 19th-century English romance, here. ;) Not exactly "Twilight." Still, an important look at one of the most important scientists of his time and the integral part his marriage played to his career and the quality of his life in general.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Magnificent!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When Charles Darwin was a young man, he created a list of pros and cons - to marry or not to marry. Though he courted one woman before his trip to the Galapagos islands, and gained the interest of another family with unmarried daughters, he surprised many people by marrying his cousin, Emma Wedgewood. Charles had already started questioning the role of God in the creation of species, and was upfront with his bride-to-be about his doubts. Despite the fact that she was religious, they had a long and happy marriage.Heiligman takes a unique approach to a biography of Charles Darwin and his coming to conclusions about natural selection and writing The Origin of Species by focusing on all through the lens of his marriage and home life. The beginning was painstaking in going through letters between Charles and Emma and showing the way in which he came to believe in evolution but worried about how his theory would be perceived. After their marriage and children come into the picture, the narrative picks up and I really enjoyed the unusual picture of a Victorian home where children were very much a part of their parents' lives and would run in and out of Charles' study while he was working. Having this focus really made both Charles and Emma come to life as regular human beings instead of larger-than-life historical figures. I was a little disappointed with the fact that as detailed as Charles' doubts and thoughts were, Emma's religious beliefs came down to the simple fact that she wanted to believe in life after death when her sister died. It could be that this is all there was in the historical record, but I wished that her convictions could have been given the same level of scrutiny that her husband's were. Though geared towards teens, the biography is a great introduction for adults as well, and has won many accolades, including a Printz Honor and National Book Award finalist.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A biography of Charles Darwin and his wife Emma Wedgewood, and their family, with detailed descriptions of his developing the theory of natural selection and the contrast between his lack of religious belief and his wife's religiousness. Includes table of contents, index and notes, as well as a small selection of photographs.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I never knew that I was fascinated by Charles Darwin until I read this book. This is a portrait of Charles Darwin's life with his wife Emma. When Charles was in his late twenties, he took a sheet of paper and drew a line down the middle. On one side he wrote "Marry" and on the other side he wrote "Not Marry". He was worried that if he married he would lose precious time for his scientific work, but the pros of marrying outweighed the cons and he found Emma to be a devoted friend, lover, caretaker, and editor. If you've got kids coming in for narrative nonfiction, hand them this book pronto. I expected it to be somewhat dry, but it wasn't. It's a rather quiet, contemplative read with so many quotes from Charles's and Emma's letters that you feel like they're actually speaking to you. I really enjoyed this book a lot. I'd hand it to high schoolers and middle schoolers that are solid readers and/or interested in the subject matter. A lengthy bibliography and index are included.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is a biography of Charles and Emma Darwin, giving each about equal weight. It gives the Darwin's family life about equal weight w/ Darwin's scientific work. This is a fine structure, and works well since both Charles and Emma left a lot of written matter behind them, suitable for the biographer. I have read a few Darwin books by now, and this is the first to discuss the origins of Emma's devoutness, attributing it in part to the death of her closest sister as an adult. It also follows the Darwins through many infant and child deaths, not just those of their own children but also of the children of their close friends, like the Huxleys and the Hookers. These deaths were a fact of Victorian life, and it is reasonable to remember it.Darwin, being a big softy, was distressed by his wife's suffering during childbirth. He couldn't ignore it. The fourth time, he actually used the new wonder drug, chloroform, to knock Emma out, and was delighted to have spared her so much pain. But it _never_ occurred to him to reduce her pain and make it more likely that she wouldn't die on him, by actually choosing to avoid pregnancy. It's facts like these, that 200 years ago an intelligent, empathetic person couldn't even think of saving the life of someone he cared deeply for and relied on by avoiding a pregnancy, that makes us so grateful for the courageous contraception advocates like Margaret Sanger. Theirs was an uphill battle, alright, and it's still going on today, witness the death threats against Melinda Gates.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Somehow I had the impression this was a story based on facts, and for adults. No, it's straight non-fiction, and for ages 12-13 up. Fascinating, though. A tiny bit long on 'this happened and then this happened' and a tiny bit short on the dilemma of the marriage of religion & science, but still an enlightening joy to read.

    ETA - forgot to mention the frequent deaths and chronic illnesses. Interesting how each dealt with all the challenges. Apparently Charles was sick with migraines, I've learned since I've read this.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    When I first started reading this book I just couldn't get it into it. I felt like the author was talking down to me, and I had already read other books about Darwin so I kept finding myself being annoyed. Then (right around the time it started getting awards) I finally got to the part where the Darwin's finally got married and started their family. This was the part where the book started picking up for me. Finally it was getting interesting.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I was really enjoying this for about the first half, and then it somehow changed a little and I found myself losing interest in the people. After that it felt more of a regurgitation of facts than the love story it was intended to be. I got it - they loved each other. That can only be said so many times in so many ways before it loses meaning. I love Darwin and his insatiable curiosity about life, and I did learn a lot, but other stuff just seemed to be random stuff thrown in to make it longer and didn't really connect with the main points.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It was that day, by the fire, that their story really began. In the library at Maer, they had made a leap, though not over class lines or parental objections. They had made a leap to marry even though they had one big difference between them that could stand in the way of their happiness. Page 59In this cute biography of Charles Darwin, most famously known for his ideas of evolution and natural selection, we get a glimpse of his private life. His struggle in deciding whether marriage would be beneficial is counterbalanced by his turmoil over publishing a scandalous theory that would turn the scientific community on its head and the constant conflict between science and religion in his own personal life. Filled with actual photographs of people and places, the book also was enlightening in shedding some insight into the brilliant man behind the science, the loving husband behind the marriage, and the doting father behind all the children he would come to bear. The book is geared towards a younger audience, making it completely readable while also being informative.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I started reading this curious book (a study of the Darwins' marriage written for teens?) on Darwin Day (February 12, 2016). I was interested in learning more about how they made their long and mixed-belief relationship work (throughout their 40+ years together, Charles was a sceptic and Emma was a believer). Turns out, it was the things that we already know make strong relationships: mutual respect, communication, love, open minds, trust, physical touch, shared goals. What a great story. The author considered titling this book Charles, Emma, and God: The Darwins at Home, which I think is just perfect.Make sure to check out Creation, the fantastic film about Mr. and Mrs. Darwin starring married actors Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Absolutely loved this! Thought-provoking, engaging, readable, and very, very moving. This real-life romance is now one of my all-time favorites, up there with that of Maud Hart Lovelace and Delos Lovelace. I was left with a profound respect for the relationship between Charles and Emma, and how they balanced their differences and built a life together. This is also the fourth book I've ever read that's made me tear up (without involving something sad happening to a dog).

    All the excerpts from letters, details of the Darwin's home life, etc so very interesting and eye-opening: the household routines, the pet names, the foibles and strengths of the family members. I highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in the dialog between science and theology, and also to those with an interest in nineteenth century life.

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The first chapter begins with this internal debate between Charles and himself of whether to marry or not to marry. The book discusses Charles’ life and growing up as well as his involvement in school. The voyage he begins after Cambridge leads him on a route of doubt about him becoming a clergy member.The book introduces us to Emma, Little Miss SlipSlop. It was interesting to see their “medical practices” to fight of chlorea for Fanny. The book begins to dwell on Charles ideas and fascination between human beings and apes. Emma accepted Charles proposal without hesitation. Side fun fact for a history major is how efficient the London post office was, delivering mail multiple times a day, waiting for responses to deliver, etc.The book shows that Charles had this internal battle about religion, beliefs, and God. The book barely touches on the wedding. And all of a sudden, Emma is pregnant. Not much transition from engagement to wedding to pregnancy. Charles writes his first book during her pregnancy. Their first son, William, was born. But they call him Doddy. They had a second child, Anne. Mary, their daughter, died at an early age.The book goes back and forth and does not really explain the amount of children. At this point of the book, I was confused on the amount of children. Through research I found they had 10 children, 3 will die at an early age. The book covers the birth of their children, as well as the deaths of their parents. The book touches on the different lives and roles the children play in their family, especially Annie. It was disheartneing to find out she died at the age of 10. The book explains the tension building between Charles and Alfred Russel Wallace. The book begins to touch on Charles's idea of natural selection. The irony is how religious and religion oriented his wife was. This sums it up perfectly, "She was a representative of the religious world he was up against--he was sleeping with the enemy!" (180). His book, The Origin of Species was published. The remaining portion of the book goes over Charles failing health. Birth of grandchildren and marriages of the children. The book ends around Charles' death, who Emma and his children were there while he died in her arms. Emma was to die 14 years later.The books tone sounds like a fiction novel. It does not scream a biography or a story telling of someone who was once important in society. This can “trick” (hate that term but it is all I can think of) students into thinking its not historical account of a famous person’s life. It is a great story telling biography of Charles Darwin. I think this is what a biographical sketch should be like. However, there were points in the book that needed to be clarified. It was very confusing with all the children's names and who died and who the family members were. A family diagram in the front of the book would have been extremely helpful to keep track of who everyone was. A timeline of births and deaths would have been even more helpful. I noticed at the very end there was a diagram, I just wish it would have been in the front like some books do. This language level seems more appropriate for 8th-12th grade levels. The story is chronological. But, it seems to jump from one event to the next with little information in between. Like I said, they were engaged for two chapters, married for one page, and then the next chapter she was pregnant. I think the author could have added more details here.There were references and aids for the reader. There are not a lot of photos but in the middle of the book there are pictures of the Darwin's and their children and their homes. It is nice to put faces to names. The author relates to Emma and Charles. She was a religion major, while she married a scientist. So there is most definitely some sort of correlation or connection. I had heard of a lot of great reviews from former students who read this book. However, I found it a boring read. It didn’t excite me. I thought the first half was really hard to get through. Compared to other books, this didn’t entertain me, I wasn’t searching for what was going to happen. I wasn’t excited over this story. I do not think I would be able to use this book as a Social Studies teacher.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    All I really knew about Darwin was evolution, the Beagle, and controversy. This very enjoyable work focuses on the relationship of Charles Darwin and his wife Emma. While he developed his theory of evolution, a radical concept for the time, his very religious wife Emma feared she would not see him in heaven when they died because of his religious doubts. Yet they shared a loving marriage and were openminded to each other's ideas and in the raising of their children. Neither quite convinced the other and yet somehow they were able to balance their differences...agree to disagree, perhaps? Author Heiligman pulls together an appealing portrait of a loving couple through existing works and their correspondence, all cited in the Source Notes.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Heiligman has written a thoroughly researched account of the relationship-with it's ups and downs-of Charles and Emma Darwin. While most people know the naturalist for being one of the first to put forth the theory of evolution, many are likely unfamiliar with the turbulence it caused in his marriage. His wife Emma was devoutly Christian and afraid that his assertions on the scientific changes undergone by different species would land him a place in hell. I found this somewhat funny, as the book says that Emma did not believe in the Christian doctrine of hypostases, or the belief in three people in one God, the basic tennant of the Christian faith. I did not particaularly care for this book-Darwin's importance in history is his "Origin of Species," and he did not really let his wife's worries change his mind about publishing (although he did wait quite a long time to publish), so I'm not sure why his wife's faith would be of any consequence to any one today. That being said, it is very obvious that Heiligman did an exhaustive amount of research, and the book is well written. Technically, I have no issues with the book; my complaints come from topic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I think what makes this best for young adults is the repetitiveness of the main points. Other than that, the book was great.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While I have to admit that nonfiction does not get my blood stirring the way a lot of fiction can, this beautifully written and thought-provoking book was a pleasure to read. It is hard to avoid the creationism vs evolution arguments that are so prevalent these days, and I was fascinated to discover how Charles Darwin struggled so to reconcile his scientific observations with the religion of the day, largely because of the love and respect he and Emma (who was quite religious) had for each other. Heiligman's background in both religion and science enables her to write with a balanced view. Young adults (and adults) who assume that science and religious faith are mutually exclusive will find much to ponder here.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm torn about this one. It was interesting, to be sure, but I think it tried to serve too many masters. Heiligman should have written a straight bio of the Darwins, and not tried to buttonhole it into YA. The sentence structure was more middle grade reader than YA, and the content was more adult/general reader than YA, both of which caused me no small number of disconnects throughout the text.

    Again, very interesting and absorbing but somehow not quite right. I wish I was more able to articulate where the false notes lie, but I'm coming away from this with a deep feeling of discontent- and I'm a Darwinist from the word go. Not on a par with his bulldog, let alone my adored Rottweiler Dawkins, but certainly one of Darwin's mutts.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    National Book Award Nominee 2009 (and my favorite so far)

    This book is more the biography of a marriage than a biography of either Charles and Emma Darwin, although it does give a brief history of their lives prior to their marriage. I think what I liked best about this book was that it showed how someone with deep religious faith and someone who wasn't even sure there was a God could make a marriage work and not be at each other's throats all the time. An interesting look at some interesting people.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the story of a marriage. It is full of compromise, tragedy, and love, just like every successful marriage. What makes this marriage worthy of a book is the fact that it is the marriage of Charles Darwin to his cousin, Emma. Though the two had known each other their whole lives, they differed on many issues including religion.The author explores the intricacies of their relationship and how they made it work and came to love each other more each year despite their differences. Though Charles' scientific accomplishments are discussed, it is only in relation to his family and wife. A beautiful story about two people in love.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    How do you balance science and faith? What happens when you add love to the mix? Can you love people with radically different opinions than your own? Charles and Emma avoids pat answers while giving a clear-eyed view of the romance between Charles Darwin and his wife Emma. Nonfiction for young adults is difficult; it has to be accessible and interesting without being condescending; a book about evolution is even more difficult. Heiligman manages her topicwell, as she assumes little background knowledge about Darwin or the theory of evolution and clarifies points without talking down to her readers. She clearly and concisely explains the social circumstances of the time period as well as key points of the theory of evolution while keeping the main focus of the book squarely on the Darwins. Readers hoping for an in-depth discussion of the theory of evolution or Darwin’s discoveries may be disappointed, as Heiligman confines herself brief overviews; the real strength lies in her exploration of the relationship of doubting Charles and religious Emma and how they loved each other deeply despite being divided about Charles’ discoveries. Endnotes and an extensive bibliography provide sources and further reading. Highly recommended for late middle school through adult. Somewhat conversational style makes it seem less academic than it really is, but never fear- Heigilman did her research.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Charles and Emma the Darwin’s “Leap of Faith” is about the marriage between the Charles and Emma Darwin. The book covers Charles’s devolvement of the theory of evolution while trying to be respectful of his wife’s devout beliefs. Moreover, it covers Darwin’s attempt to reconcile his own thoughts concerning evolution and religion. Additionally, it is about the love story between Charles and Emma. I could use excerpts of this book in a lesson. I could partner with a Biology teacher to do a cross discipline lesson on the theory of evolution itself as well as it in an historical context.Using a visual analysis of the text, there is a fair amount of made up material. The author ascribes thoughts and feelings to the characters, to make the story more interesting, that she could not know. There is a good deal of information in the book. The author did a lot of research as evidenced by the source notes and quotations in the text. The book structure is somewhat complex. It has chronology and topic organization. The book is fairly narrative as it tells the story of Charles and Emma’s life together. It is somewhat expository as it communicates Darwin’s theories. Heiligman uses some literary devices such as diction and occasionally metaphors. I feel the book has a strong author’s voice. It felt like the book had a distinct storyteller. There was a minimal amount of front matter but there was an abundant amount of back matter. There was a forward in the front of the book. In the back of the book there was an epilogue, source notes, questions, and much besides. There was not a very large amount of visual material. However, there were images and photographs of people and places mentioned in the book. There was also a family tree. So I can’t say that there was not some visual material. Nonetheless, it was primarily after the main text so I’m not sure if it should be counted.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    My “VOYA” Rating: 4Q, 2PCharles and Emma opens up with Charles debating on whether or not he should get married. His list of reasons to marry or not marry is filled with his fear of loosing his freedom, individuality, and chances to continue his life of studying and traveling. Darwin decides that he will get married because his list of positives outweighs the negatives. Charles marries his cousin Emma. This story of their love and respect for each other, the compromises that each of them make and the opposing views on religion and evolution is researched and written so well. This book was really about science and faith and the part it played in the Darwins’ relationship. The author does an amazing job of constructing a book that provides a rather intimate lens of Darwin’s everyday life, relationship with his family, wife, and children. She also provides her audience with a view of Darwin’s internal struggle of how he spent 15 years debating whether or not to publish his work and his wife’s role in helping him with his work.I like the more intimate view of Darwin. It made this book much more accessible and gave me tidbits of information that I would of never of sought out on my own. I am not so sure how accessible this book would be to a YA audience. I think it would be one of the ones that instructors would have to push on their students. (Although, the romance aspect may grab a few more than expected.)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I thoroughly enjoyed the author's exploration of Charles Darwin's personal relationships and internal conflicts. This easily read work briefly explains topics that may not be common knowledge to some readers. For example while discussing the prospect of Darwin's marriage, the author explains that it was quite common in this era for first cousins to marry. In applying the text to the visual model of analyzing nonfiction,I find that the text has considerable notes in the end. However, the reader is not afforded the opportunity to determine which parts of the texts are cited. Without this specific citation, one may say that the book is not all made up information. Otherwise, it is difficult to determine.I would place the information level at "lots of information." Although the citations are not specific, there is quite a bit of information in the text. The sentence structure is more complex in the spectrum than the middle. However I do not believe it is an extreme.The next four categories fall in the middle of the spectrum, in my opinion. There is a balance between narrative and expository text. The work is neither dense in fact nor entirely narrative. Additionally, the use of literary devise is obvious but not used to the extent that it overpowers the informational aspects of the work. As for "Author's Voice," this author does interject her opinion about several pieces of information or events. However, this is not done at an level that may taint or bias the information. I would not consider Front/Back matter and visual information in this work as copious. However, I would place this book closer to this point in the spectrum. The photographs, notes, genealogical information and index supplement the written information.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman When I think of Charles Darwin I picture a white haired man with a long white beard looking morosely at the camera. A picture of which you can find in the middle of Deborah Heiligman’s Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith. The funny thing is that by the time you get to it in the book you are picturing a very different man, a family man with a big nose who loved his wife to distraction, was sickly, and had children he laughed over as much as he cried. The stalwart gentlemen of science is in fact just a man, and a very good gentlemen, in Ms. Heiligman’s charming and, I think, entertaining biography. The shining highlight of this book is her portrayal of Charles Darwin and her ability to evoke the man in front of his often debated, disputed, challenged, mocked, brilliant science. Because Charles Darwin is as much his science as he is a gentleman who lived in 19th century England, the story is exceedingly complex which makes her achievement all the more remarkable. Language changes over time, phrases go out of mode, temperament of vocabulary (the way people use it daily and their ideas behind a word) alters. It is a writers and a historians challenge to conjure up a time period while still making the language understood by a modern audience. In a letter that Emma wrote to Charles about faith, warning him from giving up all of his in the face of his science she quotes Emma, “May not the habit in scientific pursuits of believing nothing till it is proved, influence your mind too much in other things which cannot be proved in the same way, & which if true are likely to be above our comprehension” (99). Heiligman then in the next sentence explains to the reader exactly what Emma meant. “We humans cannot prove everything; we cannot understand everything, Emma told her husband.” Emma’s words were not complex in themselves but the ideas behind them were and thus Heiligman takes them and simply lays them out in a way that can be immediately understood by the audience. Heiligman does this again and again, explaining word usage that is archaic, vocabulary, as in her explanations of cholera and other deadly diseases on page nine, that are no longer seen or thought of everyday, and the complex ideas that Darwin was trying to work out in obscure, short notes in his journals. Heiligman even takes moments to ground her readers by associating ideas with their modern counterparts by speaking directly to the reader. For instance, while describing the treatments that were being done on one of the Darwin children, Annie, she explains that penicillin would not be discovered for eighty years. Thereby showing the reader the elements of the time period while keeping in mind that her audience is not used to the idea of not being able to fight a bacterial infection. There are so many things I would like to say about the language in this book but suffice to say that I think that a modern audience, adult and minor, will be able to smoothly transition into the time period with her and at once sit comfortably in their modern living room. I wish I had a pithy way to transition, like Heiligman, into my next focus, but I do not so I will tell you that I would like to give an overview of the book since I have already started commenting on so many of its elements. Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith starts with Charles Darwin making a list of why he should or should not marry. It is years since his famous voyage aboard the HMS Beagle and long before he would finally publish The Origin of Species. Charles Darwin is contemplating that oh-so-normal state of one’s life, marriage. The poor man doesn’t even have a bride picked out so the practice is one of logic instead of the heart. He writes evocatively on the marry side of the list “better than a dog anyhow”(14). We are given glimpses of his pursuits in science sprinkled throughout his normal life of going to the club, visiting family, even meeting Emma. In this way, we are on a voyage with Charles Darwin. The reader, maybe, is pulled back to a time when they did not know his theory of evolution, although Heidigman is aware of her reader’s hypothetical knowledge on the subject, and is given the chance to discover and be tormented by it just as Charles Darwin was discovering and being tormented. The book follows the courtship, family life, births and deaths of his children, while at the same time learning about the process of science. Charles studies fossils, the beaks of birds, barnacles (who knew!), at the same time he is chronicling human behavior and emotions (even writing about his own) and figuring out instinct and adaptation. There are times in the book that are slow because of this- the process was not short and took him from 1838 to 1859 to finally publish The Origin of Species, and another ten years to publish The Descent of Man. Seeping into all elements of his science and home life was another issue, faith. Charles’ wife, Emma, was a woman with staunch beliefs about God and the afterlife and she brought that element into Charles’s life as well. She never stopped trying, through letters and to him personally, that there was more that he did not understand about the world and that above all else she wanted him to see this so that they could spend the afterlife together, which she feared his ideas would forever separate them. Religion was then and is now an important part of many people’s lives. In the 19th century, the world was changing as science leapt forward with new discoveries, inventions, and ideology caused from these changes and religious ideas were being pulled along with them. Religion could be very strict in its scientific views. Many believed that what Charles Darwin wrote was blasphemy. The he was taking God out of creation, which he believed he was. Heidigman does not shy away from this subject, instead she is straightforward and writes at length about Emma’s religious views and Charles’s growing rejection of all of them. What is intriguing is that Charles does not take his rejection lightly, does not batter the church doors with his views, he is tormented by them and is often sick because it is something that despite his own mild temperament he cannot turn away from.The organization of the book, while on the surface is simply moving along the timeline, is wonderfully complex. The complex ideas shift from one to another, taking care that they do not shift too far outside the timeline, while keeping the reading smooth without confusion or the need to backtrack. The cover, like the book, evokes the simplicity of the 19th century while intriguing the reader with an ape behind Charles and a cross hanging from Emma’s hand. The book also includes a well laid out family tree with the Darwin family on one side and the Wedgewood (Emma’s branch) on the other. Also included is an extensive list of source notes, a selected bibliography, and an index. Surprisingly, there is also an added bonus for readers in the classroom, a discussion guide and a section called questions for the author. The discussion questions follow the book chronologically, giving the questioned discussions for each part of the book. I think this would be an asset in the classroom because it starts conversation, assesses students involvement with the ideas/theories/questions posed in the book, and it could be used as sample topics for written responses. Beyond the knowledge that this book provides the reader, it also teaches another, difficult lesson that I think should be discussed in the classroom. How do we talk/write about controversial issues in a way that does not offend, bash other people, and how do we explain clearly things that are usually highly complex (as any good controversy almost always is)? Students are learning how to socialize in the world around them and having good examples of people who are tolerant and authors that can broach issues can only benefit them. I believe Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith is one such benefit.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book explores Charles Darwin's personal life. While he is certainly most well known for his Origin of Species, his personal life is less known. This book was written in almost a fictional style, but gives a full biography of Darwin's life, especially in his marriage to Emma Wedgewood. While his wife was ardently religious, Darwin's faith had progressed into atheism in his adult life. This book also revealed how the culture and morals of mid-1800s England influenced Darwin's life. This book would be best suited for high school students or young adults.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book by Deborah Heiligman gives the reader an intimate portrait of the personal life of Charles Darwin, in addition to a general understanding of the Victorian social times during which he lived. Included are pictures, a comprehensive family history and background of both himself and his wife, photographs, and many selections from his diary, such as his insights and anxieties leading up to the publication of his seminal work, "On the Origin Of The Species." I previously knew nearly nothing about the personal life of Charles Darwin; much of what I did know was limited to his research in evolution theory. However, upon completion of this book I felt as though I knew him and his family well. Despite their disagreements regarding religion, his wife Emma was his constant companion, supporter, and confidante. She spent her entire life caring for her children and husband, as for much of his life Darwin was a sickly man. Without her involvement, one wonders if he would've found the successes he did in regard to his studies. Well suited to young audiences, Heiligman's novel is also a delight for adult readers as well. She captures honestly the difficulties Darwin faced when it came to the subjects of Christian faith and evolutionary science, and also did much to renew my lifelong fascination with biology. Thus, this book would be appropriate not only for an English / Reading class, but for a Science (or even a theology) course as well.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Charles and Emma details Charles Darwin's early life, marriage, family, and scientific endeavors and publications in a form which, though entirely nonfiction, is told as a narrative. The amount of research not only given Darwin's main works and the sources, mainly other theorists and scientists, but given to a great number of letters and archived journals is magnificent. Heiligman takes the personal life and scientific endeavors of Darwin and places all of the most important details in a chronological narrative format, all while contrasting his work with the faith of his wife, Emma.Charles, born into the household of a doctor, who was arguably less religious than the scientist himself, grew up a Unitarian, which was one of the less strict, fairly liberal sects of Christianity at the time. But just as his voyages around the world crystalized in himself a staunch believe in science and "transmutation," the early deaths of Emma's sister and many of her children, namely Annie, who died at aged nine, did the same for her faith.While the book is thrilling, especially for those not familiar with all of Darwin's publications and the individual range of successes of each of them, the book also has a deeply emotional side, drawing from the tragic deaths of so many of their relatives including many young children, as well as the fairly constant allegories drawn between Charles and Emma's relationship and those in Jane Austen's books. My only complaint is that, while Darwin's viewpoints towards women are accurately portrayed and certainly reflect the times, the author does not have much to say about this, and often seems to hold the same viewpoint, perhaps if only to further convey the way in which women were treated at this time. Otherwise, there are many strong points in the book including many details I didn't know such as the fact that Darwin was taught to stuff birds by a freed slave.Lastly, I would say that this book is probably appropriate to be read to children as young as 10-12, but the reading level and the length of the book would probably more suit late middle school, namely 8th grade, for the task of individual reading. There are certainly not any inappropriate parts of the book, but I think the level of sadness associated with the infant deaths might be too much for younger children. There are also many inspiring female characters in the book, so it seems that the book, equal parts scientific inquiry and romance would be interesting across the gender spectrum.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Charles and Emma by Deborah Heiligman reads much like a romance novel set in the mid 1800's. The amount of detail and information given about the characters are almost too detailed to not be fiction. It is amazing the amount of detail that the author was able to gather on each of the family members. Through family letters and journals, so much personal information about their lives and personalities was garnered. We are able to get to know each of them so intimately that is like we were there with them.Charles Darwin is usually only known from one view, the scientific one. His view as taught to be one that was out to prove that God did not exist when he was only seeking the truth as any scientist should. This book allows us to see the struggles that he went through on this quest for the truth.The love story between he and Emma is an amazing one. One full of love and support in spite of personal differences. I love that Emma grew up in an open and loving environment that prepared her heart to love Charles with all of his opinions and ideas that were "out there" at the time. The paths they brought them to each other through waiting and not rushing into marriage just because they should is a story that many should learn from.This book would serve a science class well teaching that true scientists seek the truth and not just to prove their theories correct. Charles went where the truth led him. He let the facts shape his theories rather than his beliefs shape the "truth" that he sought. Scientists today can learn from this type of open mindedness.It can also be used in a literature class as an example of how nonfiction can flow and pull you in just as intimately as any fiction novel. It shows that you you can use literature to teach facts about people and ideas. There is a series of questions in the back that can guide the class to deeper understandings and discussions.Using the guide developed by Penny Coleman, the nine elements that guide the classification of nonfiction genre makes it a little simpler to know what to expect in a nonfiction book. I like the continuum that she uses. Some books may be all to one side and clearly fiction while others would be all the way to the other side but most books will fall somewhere in between in the various elements.I will do my best to classify Charles and Emma using her continuum. As for made up material, I feel that this book had almost no made up material except as was required to "smooth the seams". The amount of research done into the is family allowed the author to have intimate details not normally available in nonfiction work. This also covers the next element of amount of information. There was a lot of information in this book about the people and his work.The structure was fairly simple. It was chronological with background information woven into the story in such a way that it did not confuse the reader. The text was all narrative and mostly expository and used many literary devices. The story was well told and explained the thoughts and opinions of the people. There was great attention to detail that made you feel as if you were there.I am not sure about the author's voice. It seemed as if she stepped back and the story told itself. It was more about the people and story than about her writing style, which I assume is her voice. The front matter was the traditional title page, table of contents, and forward. The back matter had an amazing amount of source notes as well as a family tree of both families and questions for a guided discussion about he book. There was minimal visual material. There were a few pictures in the middle and the family trees in the back but the rest was text.Overall, this book was well written and clearly a nonfiction text that read as fiction novel because of the depth of personal information that was available to the author about the people. I highly recommend this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Charles and Emma, by Deborah Heiligman, is a successful example of the power that high-quality research and organization can have on nonfiction writing. This book flourishes because of the work and passion that the author put into its conception, as is proven in her heartfelt acknowledgments section. Heiligman weaves together a myriad of almost two hundred year old sources to form a personal, relatable love story.The author’s main task is to accompany the actual resources at her disposal with succinct, gripping writing. She proves successful in this aim, as shown here. "He wondered if morality was innate, not learned or taught. He scribbled, "I suspect conscience, an hereditary compound passion. Like avarice." If people were, in essence, naturally moral, what was the need for religion, really? (77)." Heiligman successfully articulates the “gist” from the Darwin’s thoughts, turning one line musings into paragraph long accessible explanations. It is a crucial skill that she mostly employs effectively. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of their engagement; their correspondences struck a familiar chord in me. The account of their pre-wedding angst, especially his revelation that she would have to humanize him, is well done. Also, her examination of the couple’s struggle with morality versus Charles’ theories shows to be the main strength of the book. The beginning chapters were laborious, and unfortunately large portions of the text read like paraphrased Jane Austen. While it is impressive how the facts have been woven into the text in a manner that at times reads like prose, sometimes the author’s additions between sourced materials make for tedious reading. Here's an example of a particular subjective sentence, where Heiligman reaches to fill in the blanks. "When Charles got home, Emma met him at the door. They clung to each other and wept. They went over the details of the last days again. It was necessary to go through it all together, side by side" (152). It’s hard to jump from beautiful, authentic excerpts relating fear and grief from the Darwin’s letters to this contrived guess at what reaction the parents of a dead child may have had. While I understand that the story must be told, the book suffers, at no fault of the author’s, from passages like this. Nonfiction writing doesn't have the luxury of a totally manufactured story, and the plot tends to languish from a lack of interesting subject matter.Sometimes the quotes from the Darwin and Wedgwood’s correspondences were mashed into imagined filler, however, most of the time their coexistence is fluently achieved. The creation of an enjoyable love story between a woman of God and a man of science that simultaneously explains Darwin’s theories and their world’s reaction to them is a true triumph for the author. The book can truly be liked and appreciated by anyone, regardless of age or gender.

Book preview

Charles and Emma - Deborah Heiligman

Charles

and

Emma

The Darwins’ Leap of Faith

DEBORAH HEILIGMAN

Henry Holt and Company

New York

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About the Author

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Foreword

The story of Charles Darwin has never been told this way before.

Authors by the hundreds have written about Darwin’s genius and the way his ideas transformed the world. Scholars by the thousands have described the adventures that made him famous: first, his voyage around the world as a young naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle and, second, his discovery of the vast, novel, and strange intellectual territory that he mapped in his masterpiece, The Origin of Species.

Those two stories are among our civilization’s most celebrated eureka moments. But as far as I know, this is the first book to focus on the adventure that began when Darwin, home from his voyage, took out a piece of scrap paper and made himself a quirky, funny, very candid list of the pros and cons of settling down.

Charles Darwin’s search for a woman to marry led him almost immediately to a private eureka moment, when he visited his aunt and uncle at Maer Hall, in Staffordshire, and sat down by a fire in the library to have a little chat (they called it a goose) with his cousin Emma Wedgwood.

In that time and place, marriage between cousins was not at all unusual, and everyone thought Charles and Emma were a good match. There was only one problem, one obstacle to their happiness: Emma was religious. She cared deeply about her Christian faith. When Charles confessed to her the revolutionary ideas that he was scribbling in his secret notebooks, she felt frightened. Emma thought they would be parted by death forever, go separate ways in eternity, because she would go to heaven and Charles would go to hell.

How Charles and Emma struggled with this dilemma and made a successful marriage of science and religion is the story told in this book. Reading it helps us understand in the most vivid, intimate, and personal way how shocking Darwin’s ideas were for the people of his time, including some of the people who were closest to him. It helps us see why he felt he had to keep his ideas to himself for so long, writing secret on the covers of the journals and notebooks in which he scribbled furiously during the months and years after the voyage of the Beagle. The ideas in Charles’s notebooks seemed revolutionary and dangerous, not only to many of the people around him in nineteenth-century England but to the woman he loved more than anyone in the world. We can understand better why he spent twenty years refining and polishing his theory before he dared, with dread and misgivings, to publish The Origin of Species.

So often the scientific and the religious views of life are seen as two separate worlds. As enemies. And in a sense you might say that Charles and Emma Darwin were each sleeping with the enemy. But they were not enemies. They were the best of friends, and their story is an inspiration. They had ten children. They lost three. One of those deaths was so tragic and terrible that Charles and Emma could hardly bear to talk about it for the rest of their lives. The problem of faith and religion and the afterlife in some ways only grew larger as they confronted those tragedies and faced the chasm at the end of life. And yet together they triumphed.

Darwin’s revolutionary ideas have become so established now that biologists cannot imagine life without them. But those same ideas still have the power to frighten and disturb many devout people. The ability of Charles and Emma to go beyond those differences—to love each other in spite of them—is an inspiring story for our time.

Because the love story of Charles and Emma has not been told before at full length, even old Darwin fans will find much here to enjoy. Consider the last paragraph of The Origin of Species, one of the most famous passages in science. There Darwin sums up his whole view of life by talking about an entangled bank. I never knew until I read this book that this was a bank that Charles and Emma often saw on their walks from Down House, their home in the country. Charles and Emma were entangled in their love and science, just as mind, heart, and spirit are entangled in each one of us.

Reading Charles and Emma, one feels that their love story was one of the most significant adventures and greatest masterpieces of Darwin’s life.

—JONATHAN WEINER

Pulitzer prize-winning

author of The Beak of the Finch

In her presence he found his happiness,

and through her, his life.

—FRANCIS DARWIN

Chapter 1

Better Than a Dog

Why, the shape of his head is quite altered.

—DR. ROBERT DARWIN, IN 1836,

AFTER CHARLES’S FIVE-YEAR VOYAGE

In the summer of 1838, in his rented rooms on Great Marlborough Street, London, Charles Darwin drew a line down the middle of a piece of scrap paper. He had been back in England for almost two years, after a monumental voyage around the world. He was in his late twenties. It was time to decide. Across the top of the left-hand side, he wrote Marry. On the right he wrote Not Marry. And in the middle: This is the Question.

It was easy for Charles to think of things to write under Not Marry.

Freedom to go where one liked, he began. Charles loved to travel. His voyage had lasted almost five years; he had been the naturalist on the HMS Beagle, a British surveying ship. He was horribly seasick while on board, but he spent as much time as he could on land, exploring on horseback and on foot, and collecting thousands of specimens, from corals in the Cocos-Keeling Islands of the Indian Ocean to beetles in Australia to a fox in Chiloé Island, Chile. He now lived in London with his servant from the Beagle, Syms Covington, Fiddler and Boy to the Poop Cabin. Charles had taught Syms to shoot and skin birds and to help him list and catalogue the specimens. Now Charles and Syms were surrounded by neatly stacked wooden crates, casks, and barrels filled with many of their treasures from Patagonia, Brazil, Chile, and Tierra del Fuego: fossil bones, skins, shells, fish preserved in spirits of wine, mammalia in spirits of wine, insects, reptiles and birds in spirits of wine, plants, rocks, carcasses of dead animals, and beetles. What if Charles wanted to go on another adventure and collect more specimens? How could he do that if he got married?

Next, under Not Marry he wrote: —choice of Society & little of it.—Conversation of clever men at clubs—

On Great Marlborough Street, Charles lived just a few doors away from his older brother, Erasmus, and he was spending much of his time with Eras and his circle of intellectual friends, which included the historian and writer Thomas Carlyle and his wife, Jane; the writer Harriet Martineau; and the Darwins’ first cousin, Hensleigh Wedgwood. They discussed the huge changes in England brought on by industrialization. When Charles had left for his voyage, there were a few trains; now the railroad zigzagged all over the country, reaching places only horse-drawn carriages had gone before. The growing number of mills and factories changed the landscape as well; towns and cities were expanding, as was the division between rich and poor. The rich benefited from the new industry and from Great Britain’s burgeoning empire. The poor suffered in the squalor that Charles Dickens was capturing so well in his serialized novels. Erasmus and his circle debated the Poor Laws, which were shunting the destitute into workhouses; they discussed the need for social reform.

There were divisions in religion in nineteenth-century England, too. Religious zealots and religious dissenters were making noise while members of the Church of England and Unitarians like the Darwins also quietly questioned their faith. Freethinking liberals, Eras and his circle were respected members of the British upper classes, and Charles found it easy—and stimulating—to be with them. Because they were open-minded and liberal, Charles knew he could broach with them some of the radical scientific thoughts he was beginning to have. This was what mattered to him. Not going to dinner parties, teas, and other torturous social occasions where people inundated him with seemingly endless questions about his travels.

Not that all of his social occasions were torturous. Charles was spending time with—and being courted by—three sisters in one family. The Horner girls were clever young women, well-read and educated, with promising intellectual futures. They even shared his interest in natural history, geology, and zoology. Their oldest sister, Mary, was already married to a new friend of his, Charles Lyell, a prominent geologist. Mr. Horner approved of Charles Darwin as a son-in-law and hoped for a match. I have not seen anyone for a long time with a greater store of accurate knowledge, he wrote to Mary. Erasmus teased Charles, calling Mrs. Horner Mother-in-law. So the marriage question was not hypothetical.

And Charles Darwin was a good catch. He was a tall man, about six feet, thickset—big but not fat. He was athletic and fit from his adventures on the voyage. He dressed conservatively in the styles of the day: tailcoat, fine linen shirt with standing collar, and tall hat. He had gray eyes, a ruddy complexion, and a pleasant face, though he did not like his nose, which he felt was too big and bulbous. He was from an upstanding, wealthy family; he had much to talk about, and he had a promising future. His reputation had, as they say, preceded him. While he was traveling, Charles had sent back thousands of his specimens to his old Cambridge professor, John Stevens Henslow. Some of these specimens had begun to make him famous in the natural history world before he had even returned to England, including a rare fossil head of a giant ground sloth he had found in Argentina in horizontal position in the cemented gravel; the upper jaw & molars exposed, as Charles had written in his first geological specimen notebook. The remarkable fossil sloth head had been presented at a meeting of the British Association of the Advancement of Science in Cambridge.

But if he were to marry one of the Horner girls, or anyone else, he could see the obligations ahead, whereas if he remained single, he would be freer to pursue his science.

He added to the Not Marry side of his list, Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. He liked his brother, his sisters, his cousins the Wedgwoods. But what if he didn’t like his wife’s relatives? There was so much compromising you had to do if you were married. He could see it in his friends, many of whom had gotten married while he was away.

Walking down the street one day not long after he had gotten back, he had seen his cousin Hensleigh carrying a child in one hand and a round box in the other. Hensleigh had married a cousin from the other side of his family in 1832, the year Charles left on the voyage. (First cousins often married at this time, especially in the upper classes.) Now Hensleigh had two children, and Charles shuddered at the thought of all the juggling a young father had to do. Did he want the responsibility? His reaction to this scene was so strong that it made the rounds of the family gossip: Emma Wedgwood, Hensleigh’s sister, wrote to her sister-in-law with amusement how struck Charles was by Hensleigh’s juggling.

Not surprising, therefore, that Charles continued his Not Marry list with —to have the expense & anxiety of children—perhaps quarrelling. It wasn’t just the time and distraction that worried him; although he was frugal, he doubted he would ever make enough money by collecting beetles and writing about coral. Lack of money always led to fights, that he knew. And could he stand the anxiety and worry of having children? Cholera, a deadly disease, had just reached England for the first time, and there were epidemics of typhus, typhoid fever, and scarlet fever. Children got sick, children died. So there would be worry about health along with worry about money. And it all would take so much time. That was the crux of the issue. He wrote and underlined twice Loss of time.

Charles needed as many hours a day as he could have to do his work. First of all, he had to solicit more experienced naturalists to help him analyze his specimens. Charles had so many kinds of specimens; he was not an expert on every bird, bone, and bug. He had already given out his rare Megatherium bones and his finches and mockingbirds from the Galapagos Islands. But he had more of his collections to distribute to experts, and he had to urge them, coax them, to tell him what they thought. What did he have? Had he found new species? What significance did his finds have, if any?

As a single man with no family responsibilities, he could meet with these experts, go to scientific meetings, and visit museums and libraries whenever he wanted to. He didn’t have to worry about a wife or her relatives dictating how his time should be spent.

Charles felt strongly that he had no time to waste. Near the end of his voyage, he had heard from one of his sisters that Henslow and another old professor of his, Adam Sedgwick, were both very interested in the bones he had sent back. Sedgwick declared his collection above all praise and said that Charles would have a great name among the Naturalists of Europe. Charles found this terribly gratifying and knew that with those endorsements he would continue to work hard on natural history. He wrote, A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

Before the voyage, Charles had been a typical natural history collector. In nineteenth-century England, everyone from country parsons to teenage girls collected butterflies, flowers, even stuffed birds and fossil bones. Looking at God’s wondrous handiwork was a worthwhile avocation, and in some cases, vocation. Collectors tried to amass and describe as many of God’s species as possible and hoped to find new crabs, moths, finches, or ferns. And if you were lucky, the new species you discovered would be named after you—Charles had a few named after him, including a South American ostrichlike bird, the Rhea darwinii, and a frog that lived in Chile and Argentina, Rhinoderma darwinii.

Although he was pleased to have such an extensive collection, Charles was thinking about something bigger when he looked at his fossils. He was thinking about the origins of life. While on the voyage, reading Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology and looking at desert islands, rugged cliffs, and volcanoes, Charles knew that Lyell was right: Earth was not formed in 4004 b.c. as Archbishop James Ussher had calculated in 1658. This date had been incorporated into an authorized Bible in 1701, and many people still believed it was a fact. But Charles was certain that the earth was formed much longer ago than that and was still being formed. Once he realized that the earth was changing, that the story of creation in the Bible was not literally true, Charles’s mind was opened to the possibility of a different kind of creation in the animal and plant kingdoms. Looking at the specimens he had collected, Charles realized that species were forming and changing all the time, too. The idea of evolution, or transmutation, as it was then called, had been debated and refuted for years. But toward the end of his voyage, and now back in England, as he looked at bird specimens from the Galapagos Islands, Charles had the beginnings of a new theory to explain transmutation. He felt sure that if he could work it through, he would change the way the world thought about creation. He desperately wanted and needed to work it through. He had started the great project already, and he was consumed by it, giving it hours and hours every day.

He was making copious notes in small leather notebooks filled with high-quality paper made from linen rags. Each notebook was labeled with a letter. He had opened the first one, a brown leather notebook with a metal clasp, in July 1837. On the cream-colored pages, he had begun to jot down his secret and revolutionary thoughts about the origin of new species. Examining specimens he had collected, Charles was finding evidence that went against the prevailing concept of creation, which was that God had created all the species of birds, bees, and beetles at once and that there were no new ones since the first creation. Some people argued that fossils existed because God, displeased with his creations, had engineered a few worldwide catastrophes that had destroyed all the existent species and then had started creation all over again. But Charles had a very different idea, and he was accumulating pages and pages of observations, thoughts, ideas, and questions, filling up more and more notebooks, each with a different focus and marked with a different letter. He had many questions, from the everyday: Owls. transport mice alive? to the pointed: How easily does Wolf & Dog cross? How could he answer all of them if he succumbed to the mundane responsibilities of married life? He would have to spend his time hurrying down the street with a box in one arm and a baby in the other. There was so much to write on the Not Marry side of the page!

He continued, Cannot read in the Evenings—fatness & idleness—Anxiety & responsibility—less money for books &c if many children forced to gain one’s bread.

And yet, even on this side of the paper, he conceded (But then it is very bad for ones health to work too much).

Back to the negatives. Perhaps my wife won’t like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool.

Charles wasn’t completely sure he liked London himself. The city was noisy and dirty, the weather murky, the air often polluted with a yellow smog from the new factories and from all the fireplaces burning dirty coal. He often longed for the countryside near Wales where he grew up. But he thought that living in the country might make him lazy, which would be terrible for his work. He absolutely did not want to be either idle or a fool. On the other hand, you could stay in London and still be idle. Erasmus was; he was no fool, but he had neither a wife nor a career. Charles looked at him and knew that was not what he wanted.

So. That’s where he ended his list of reasons not to marry.

Under Marry, Charles began: Children—(if it please God). He did enjoy other people’s children. He played with them, and he observed them. He wrote in one of his secret notebooks Children have an uncommon pleasure in hiding themselves & skulking about in shrubbery. When other people are about: this is analogous to young pigs hiding themselves.

Looking at his friends’ and cousins’ children he thought not only of pigs but also of savages, as the English called native people. During his voyage around the world, his encounters with natives had been startling and enlightening. On the Beagle there were three people from Tierra del Fuego who had lived for a while in England. They had been civilized in that they now wore British clothes and had adopted British manners. But when Charles and his shipmates first arrived in Tierra del Fuego, a group of natives perched on an overhang above the sea sprang up, and waving their tattered cloaks sent forth a loud and sonorous shout. They wore little clothing. Some of them, even full-grown women, were completely naked. Their hair was tangled, but many of the people had dramatically painted faces, with a bright red bar from ear to ear, white-chalked eyelids, streaks of black charcoal. As different as they looked, they were able to communicate with the English travelers and could imitate anything. One native man had learned new dance steps, which impressed Charles. Spending time with these people had made Charles think of ways that pigs, children, primitive peoples, Englishmen all were related. This was a clue to his secret theory.

But now, thinking about children, he was thinking also as a man and a potential father. It would be nice to have his own little piggies skulking about in the bushes.

Charles definitely liked to be surrounded by people. He had good friends and was close to his sisters and his brother. Having a wife would be really nice. He continued on the Marry side, constant companion (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one—

He hoped his wife would live a long time, unlike his mother, who had died painfully, probably of an infection, when Charles was only eight. His father, an experienced and extremely successful doctor, had not been able to save her. Her death devastated Dr. Darwin, though Charles himself hardly remembered her. He hoped he would find someone who would be interested in him, definitely, but he also wanted someone he could love. He wrote object to be beloved & played with.

And then: better than a dog anyhow.

Sometimes Charles thought dogs were easier than people. He had loved dogs since he was a boy, and they loved him. When Charles had just gotten back from the voyage, he found it difficult at first to resume where he had left off with his sisters and his father. He had changed, and they didn’t seem to be able to adjust to that. But when he went out into the yard and whistled, his dog (who was surly to everyone else but adored him) rushed out to walk with him, as if their last walk had been the day before, not five years earlier. Why couldn’t people be more like dogs? he wondered—and wished. But a dog can’t do everything, and so a wife would be better than a dog anyhow.

He listed more positives: Home, & someone to take care of house—Charms of music & female chit-chat.—These things good for one’s health.—but—

There it was again—terrible loss of time. Too much music, too much chitchat. Not enough time to do his work. Again he looked at his brother, Erasmus. Even though he was a bachelor, Eras spent much of his time with women—mostly other men’s wives—taking them on errands in his carriage, going to dinners. But then he returned them to their husbands. Harriet Martineau wasn’t married, and there was gossip about Harriet and Erasmus. But Eras seemed determined to remain single. His father and sisters wanted to fix him up with their cousin Emma Wedgwood, mostly to stop the gossip, but so far nothing had happened there. Erasmus was in control of his own life, as Charles could be if he stayed a bachelor, too. Yet—

My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all.—No, no won’t do.—Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House.

Alone in his smoky, dirty London house, Charles thought about love and romance and what went with it. He read poems by the romantics William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge—Where true Love burns Desire is Love’s pure flame… He filled his notebooks with the scientific aspects of love, with questions about breeding and heredity. So far most of his questions were about animals, but in his notebook marked B, Charles wrote in brown ink on pages with faint green rules, In Man it has been said, there is instinct for opposites to like each other. Perhaps he and his wife would be opposites, but close.

Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps—

And heading off to bed later.

He ended his list under Marry, Compare this version with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St.—his life on Great Marlborough Street, where he went to bed alone.

The lists on the left and right side of the page looked about the same length. But Charles felt that he had found more reasons to marry than not. He wrote on the left side, squeezed at the bottom, the answer to his question: Marry—Marry—Marry Q.E.D.

QED: quod erat demonstrandum, Latin for which was to be demonstrated or proved. He had proven to himself that he should get married. On paper at least. But he had one other fear, a fear that he could not bring himself to write down. The issue was too big. He would have to talk to his father.

Chapter 2

Rat Catching

I do not believe that anyone could have shown more zeal

for the most holy cause than I did for shooting birds.

—CHARLES, ON HIS CHILDHOOD PASSION

To talk to his father, Charles set out for home. Home was the Mount, a large, square brick house in Shrewsbury, a quiet market town in the county of Shropshire about 150 miles northwest of London. Even with the expanded railroad, the trip from London to Shrewsbury was a long one; it had to be made by train and carriage. The journey would take Charles all day, about twelve hours.

The Mount was typical of Georgian architecture from the previous century. The house had regular, strict proportions, which was how Charles’s father liked things. Charles’s father, Dr. Robert Darwin, was a huge man—over three hundred pounds, with a huge personality and reputation to match. People from all over Shropshire came to him for advice—both medical and financial, for he was

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