Customer Reviews

Charles Darwin: A Biography, Vol. 1 - Voyaging

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When I see a biography that tops out at over 600 pages, I usually give it a pass. I mean, how much do I really want to know about someone - anyone? Also, as far as Darwin goes, I had already read the excellent life by Desmond and Moore. Yet I went through this book avidly, and would have been sorry to see it end - but that I knew volume II was waiting!

I actually only noticed this book because of the laudatory reviews that appeared recently for volume II ("The Power of Place"). Perhaps it is true that I cannot get enough of Darwin, so I was drawn to this as any addict to his fix. But I think that for me the most appealing thing about Charles Darwin is his quintessential Victorianism. He lived and worked in a privileged position in a culture that was as sublimely self-confident as any the world has ever seen, and that, moreover, bestrode that world as none before or since (our blundering and half-hearted imperialism not excepted).

Actually, the Darwin Story is becoming canonical. Our culture is about the clash of narratives as much as anything else. The Free Market opposes the Welfare State, the Promise of Progress is really the Erosion of Identity, and, most shrilly, the Blind Watchmaker threatens to displace the Christian God.

So, I suppose that to read this book is to choose sides. Shame about that, but there it is. Anyway, even if you know the story, this book (and its sequel) will tell it better and deeper. Janet Browne has not only mastered the Darwin materials, but his milieu as well. She seems to have gone far afield in researching the lives of those that impinged on Darwin, just in order to make throwaway statements and large judgments on people who are perhaps bit players in his life. They, of course, have lives of their own, fully lived, and like a novelist, Browne hints at more that she tells. The occasional summarizing aside of some life that glances on Darwin's gives this book a novelistic texture and feel. The author has pulled off the difficult trick of making us feel she is telling a story that she owns.

Browne starts with a leisurely scene-setting that places the Darwins and the Wedgwoods (Charles's paternal and maternal lines) in the Georgian society of the day. She discusses the culture and the family traditions, and places the players in the landscape and houses them grandly. (Very helpful here is a generous genealogy in the front matter.) We see young Charles carefree and out-of-doors, with his loving and indulgent older sisters and his great friend, older brother Erasmus. We see him rather reluctantly growing up, attending Edinburgh University and then Cambridge, where he is unscathed by the official curricula, but emerges with firm friends among some bug-loving students as well as the naturalists on the faculties.

About one-third of this book covers the voyage of the Beagle, the forming event in Darwin's life as a scientist. Of its five years, Darwin spent more than three of them on land, exploring, collecting, and observing all up and down the coasts of South America and, finally, in islands of the Pacific (including, most famously, the Galapagos).

When Darwin got home his troubles began. All the glorious collecting and larking about of his school days and the grand adventure on the Beagle were over. Those experiences drew on his enthusiasm, energy, and growing expertise in zoology and geology. Now, back home, he had to make something of himself, he had to secure an identity. Could he use the physical materials he had gathered and his position in society to do it? Darwin's real story begins when he steps off the dock after five years away from home.

Browne tells this life in a quietly gripping way. The vast amount of material that she had to integrate does not get in the way of the tale, but allows her to tell it seamlessly. She never lets the narrative bog down in irrelevancies, but always paints a full picture of the scene, giving its human, intellectual and social components their due.

The story of Charles Darwin is really the story of an idea. Darwin was the central figure, but Hooker, Wallace, Lyell, Huxley, and many others had important parts to play. But in the progress of abstract ideas the personal is important: a strong motivation for Darwin's secrecy with his thoughts on evolution was to avoid distressing his wife Emma, a fervent believer in a Heaven where she would be reunited with those siblings and children so cruelly taken from her. Browne always shows this human side to science, shows that science is a quite human endeavor. And in this volume she takes the story up to 1856, as Darwin finally decides to take the plunge, after a dozen years of doubts and obsessive preparations.

Now, he will write a book....

After he writes that book, Darwin's life is never the same. Actually, after that, nobody's life is the same. Big drama is coming up in volume II, so why bother with this book? It is entertaining and brilliantly done, but is just prologue, right?

I disagree. In fact, if you just glance through "The Origin of Species" you will see that Darwin put most of his life up to that point into his book. And his later life was built firmly on the foundation of his earlier: he made the friends and formed the ideas that were to become central in the controversies over natural selection. Themes have been stated and developed. Volume II will develop them further, and introduce new matter, but does not tell a separate story.

Janet Browne has written quite a cliff hanger. She leaves off just when Charles Darwin is going public with his then astounding theory. Hopefully Volume II is just around the corner. The agony is unbearable.

Darwin's life is painted with a broad brush. We are given a picture of natural science in Mid-Victorian England. All the players and issues taking place in natural science at that time are illuminated. Miraculously Browne pulls this off without becoming tedious, exhausting, or overhwelming the reader. It's quite a feat.

Browne gives us a peek inside Charles Darwin and we can feel the pull between what is becoming clearly evident to him and the deeply ingrained beliefs of a man who earlier in life was headed for a life as a country parson. He was also upset at how all of this was going to settle on his deeply religious wife. Browne manages this without falling into the trap of psychological analysis, Freudian or otherwise.

I wish all biographies could be as readable and as lucid as this one. As another reviewer here has said: this will become the definitive biography of Darwin's life. I agree. I would rate this book in the top 10 of books of all time on the history of science. Seeing how Darwin is still at center stage in the fight for science education in our schools, this book should be required reading for anyone interested contemporary education or science.

Though it never lacks for details about Darwin's life, Janet Browne creates a panoramic sweep of Victorian science. One sees Darwin in full context, as a man of his time struggling with ideas that grew from his research and explorations and yet they were ideas that he himself was not truly comfortable with.

Browne presents the story without a lots of overdramatization. The book is hugely dramatic though the drama comes from the details and not the presentation. It is not a hagiography. There no kettle drums rumbling in the background.

When you read the book you will gain insights into how science grew from an amateur affectation of afternoon beetle collecting trips to the countryside, to a fully recognized profession. Browne miraculously pulls this off without ever leaving sight of Darwin and his life.

Like a good "Perils of Pauline" Saturday morning serial, the volume I leaves off at the most incisive part of Darwin's career, thus leaving thousands of readers waiting breathlessly for Volume II.

The book seems so complete so I passed on reading any other biographies of Darwin, but I did find Adrian Desmond's Huxley : From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest to be a good companion work and interim filler. T.H. Huxley took up Darwin's cause and became known as "Darwin's Bulldog" This was however just one role that Huxley filled. Huxley himself is also giant of the emerging science movement in Victorian England.

I feel that part of my life is missing until Browne's Volume II arrives.

This is the first volume of two covering the life and works of Charles Darwin. I have read quite a number of books, both about and by Darwin, and this, without a doubt is the best of the biograhies as yet written to date. If covers Darwin from the beginning, up through the voyage of the Beagle, and a bit beyond. Extremely detailed and very well researched, the books reads as smoothly as any novel, yet it is truely a scholarly work. It is one of the most detailed works of this sort I have read. I read a review recently in a trade publication that stated you will go into absolute information overload with this one. That is not far from the truth. As to detailed research, the closest I can think of, off the top of my head, is Dallek's work on LBJ...even that does not come all that close. Ms. Brown's style is wonderful, her thoughts well laid out. The belief in evolution is neither here nor there when reading this work. While it does indeed deal with his life work, i.e. "The Orgin of Species," it gives us more insight to the man, rather than the theory. Whether or not you are an evolutionist or creationist is moot. Darwin's impact on our society and the way we view the world was changed with this man and we should know him and the society that created him. To understand our current history, an understanding of this man and his times is absolutely necessary. I collect books about Charles Darwin, and this one now sets at the head of my "Darwin Shelf." I highly recommend it and highly recommend you add it to your collection.

...and I've read quite a few. Janet Browne has an enormous gift with words that really bring out the person behind the legend. With a wonderful mix of scholarship and story-telling Browne takes us through the early (and most physically adventurous) part of Darwin's life, drawing on letters, reminiscences, and broader history to fill in the gaps that darwin himself left in Beagle and the Autobiography. This is definitely THE biography to read if you want to get a real taste for the source of so much of Darwin's later thinking. My one complaint? WHERE IS VOLUME 2???

"I am almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion
I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing
a murder) immutable."--Charles Darwin, in a letter to
Joseph Dalton Hooker, January 1844

In 1859, The Origin of Species dropped like a bombshell
on the world. One of the most radical books of the 19th
century--its full title was On the Origin of the Species
by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of
Favored Races in the Struggle for Life--turned the society
of its day upside down.

"No other thinker," writes Janet Browne, "shook Victorian
England as deeply as Charles Darwin and the theory of
evolution by natural selection. His radical new theory of
nature undermined everything usually believed about
the human race."

In The Origin of Species, Darwin painted a dark picture
of nature red in tooth and claw, the struggle for existence
as a perpetual competition--species against species,
individual against individual--a dark cosmos of change,
alteration, flux, development, and transmutation.

In this dog-eat-dog world, he saw the evolution was
powered by the engine of natural selection--the survival
of the fittest

In Charles Darwin: Voyaging, Volume One of a projected
two-volume biography, Browne has launched an ambitious
work that is wide-ranging, intelligent, and impressive in
its scientific acumen.

The volume is a marvelous tribute to the life and thought
of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), one of the greatest figures
in the history of science.

Browne divides the 21 chapters of this 600-page tome
into three parts:

Part One, "Collector," tells of Darwin's birth in Shrewsbury,
Shropshire, England, a town nestled on the Severn River;
describes his education at Edinburgh University (where
the sight of blood convinced him not to be a medical
doctor) and at Cambridge University (where he studied
to be a country parson); and explains the "Cambridge
network" of professors, scholars, acquaintances, and friends.

Part Two, "Voyaging," chronicles the five-year journey of
the H.M.S. Beagle (Dec. 27, 1831, to Oct. 2, 1836), a
voyage that circumnavigated the world and changed
Darwin's life forever. Browne describes the fiery Capt.
Robert FitzRoy and the remarkable lands explored by
Darwin: Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, the Galapagos
Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia.

Part Three, "Naturalist," tells of Darwin's marriage to
Emma Wedgwood and their children, of Darwin's becoming
a "man of property" with his purchase of Down house and
18 acres of land situated in Down village in Kent (now
Downe), about 15 or 16 miles from the center of London.

At Down house, Darwin labored for eight years on his
"beloved barnacles," seeking hard facts to bolster his
theory of "transmutation," and then proceeded to the
study of plants and pigeons.

Browne's work ends in 1856, three years before the
publication of The Origin, with Darwin poised to begin
writing his "big book on species," to which he gave the
working title, Natural Selection.

Rich in scientific content and impressive in its writing style,
Charles Darwin: Voyaging is the best biography I have
read in years. Put this book of your must-read list.

Janet Browne has done something that is very hard to do. She has written the best biography so far produced of a man who's life has been examined numerous times- Charles Darwin. I have read at least four or five biographies of Darwin, plus his own autobiography, and can say that for engrossing detail, without loosing the main thread, Browne has topped them all! This is the first volume in a two-volume series and I can't wait to dig into the second part, which deals with the Origin of Species and after.

The main strength of Browne's book, Charles Darwin: Voyaging, (and I expect the main strength of her second volume) is that she has a fantastic ability to weave details into the story without getting bogged down. This is a well-written and very well researched book and I found myself amazed at some of the material she had found on Darwin's earlier life, especially as a medical student in Edinburgh. The book is almost a social and scientific history of England starting with the late Georgian period. However, Browne makes the historic references very pertinent to her story. Anybody reading this book and (I'm sure) the second volume, will come away with a much deeper understanding of and appreciation for the struggle that has gone into the development of our modern worldview. Darwin certainly had his flaws, as do we all, but he was also certainly one of the most admirable of men, despite all his human failings. Browne makes us understand why this man was great and how he reached this greatness by following his curiosity beyond the superficial. She also gives us a more detailed understanding as to why Darwin found solace in natural history, instead of following his father, Robert, into the medical profession.

This is certainly just the best book to read to understand Darwin's early life before the publication of the Origin of Species. I recommend it without any reservation.

I read this book several years ago, and I enjoyed it tremendously. Janet, if you are listening, I am very much looking forward to the next volume. I know it can't be easy, but stick in there!

Janet Browne's biography of Charles Darwin is the best I've read thus far. Her style is limpid and concise, and she succeeds wonderfully in taking us back to the intelectual and social atmosphere of 19th century England. Most importantly, she provides a detailed account of the dynamics on both sides of Darwin's family, and at the end we can understand many of the driving forces behind Darwin's success. Browne's book is definitively not hagiographic; rather, it tries to put Darwin in a definite context, making it clear that he benefited from many people around him. I cannot wait for the second part of her biography!

Janet Browne's far-reaching biography misses little in bringing us the life of the 19th Century's most controversial biologist/geologist. The first volume of a two-volume set, "Voyaging", begins (as you would expect) with his youth in the English town of Shrewsbury under his father's care. We meet his father - a Doctor and businessman, his brother - intelligent but unfocused, and his late grandfather Erasmus Darwin who was well known at the time for his eccentric and agnostic views.

From his early days, Browne depicts a Darwin struggling to find himself, first as a medical student in Edinburgh, then as a student of theology in Cambridge. Though we know better what Darwin is to be, Browne's portrait of him manages to evoke the doubt that he must have felt when faced with adequate but uninspiring career options.

But the story often returns to Darwin's love of the outdoors and of biology - a theme which underpins all of his early feints and mis-steps at life. He is seen as a frequent hunter, and an avid collector and cataloguer of insects and beetles. Despite this, and despite the benefit of hindsight, at times I felt some tension - finding myself unconsciously wishing to offer advice to this young man who seems adrift and unaware of the great role that history was preparing him for.

We finally catch a glimpse of that future as he fortuitously receives an offer to travel aboard The Beagle, a vessel bound for South America on a surveying mission. I won't spoil the rest, other than to say that Browne does an excellent job of building Darwin, showing in detail each moment of discovery upon which the next is laid, capturing his excitement about the natural world as he slowly sheds his amateur standing and gains confidence - finally attaining acknowledged scientific stature. And yet even then, Darwin holds his boldest work out of sight of the world, privately developing the theory of natural selection out of sight of a straightjacketed Victorian society.

In tenor, it's clear that Browne, a Professor in the History of Biology greatly respects her subject. But she does not allow him to pass through her pen unscathed. Darwin was a man of his times and of a certain station, and held certain prejudices that the author doesn't hesitate to point out - such as his not wholly humanitarian attitudes about slavery. She also reveals what some may find Darwin's less endearing traits such as his anti-social tendencies and his lack of any real passion for any subject but science (When approaching the subject of marriage, Darwin's priority on research causes him to discard several eligible but too learned women who, he feared, might place demands on his time).

She does seem to soft-pedal Darwin's poor treatment of his companions on The Beagle, many of whom contributed significantly to his efforts on that seminal voyage, and whose contributions went largely uncredited and unrecognized. (For those curious, this theme is well-explored in Robert Wright's "The Moral Animal")

Also, it was difficult for me to follow the various people who pass through his life and their relationship to him, more my failing than the author's I think, as she provides ample details on the many individuals who made an impact on Darwin's life. If you do decide to read it, it might be helpful to keep a pen and paper handy for jotting down a few notes (although the author does append a fairly extensive family tree at the front of the book).

Certainly, the book is well worth reading for anyone with more than a passing interest in exactly how the theory of evolution (and the legend of Charles Darwin) was born. I've read few biographies better.