by Greg Mayer
A new history of evolutionary biology before Darwin, Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution by Rebecca Stott, appeared earlier this summer, and an interview with the author appeared in yesterday’s New York Times (it was posted to the Times‘ website several days earlier).

I must admit that the subtitle made me a bit wary– I imagined some impassioned plea for the priority of On Naval Timber and Arboriculture— but the review in the New York Times by Hugh Raffles, and yesterday’s interview, show it is no such thing.
As is well known, spurred on by Alfred Russel Wallace’s Ternate paper, Darwin completed an “abstract” of his big species book. This abstract was the Origin, and it was rather long for an abstract: 513 pp.! Because he thought of it as an abstract of a much longer work to come, and completed it hurriedly, Darwin did not include the footnotes and citations that were typical of scholarly practice of the time, and indeed, of his other works (see, for example The Descent of Man). In response to criticism that he had slighted his sources and predecessors, Darwin wrote a “Historical Sketch” for later editions. R.B. Freeman, in his monumental bibliography of Darwin’s work (1977, p. 78; now carried on and extended by John van Wyhe), explains
The third [British] edition [of the Origin] appeared in April 1861, 2,000 copies being printed. The case is the same as that of the two previous editions, but again differing in small details. It was extensively altered, and is of interest for the addition of a table of differences between it and the second edition, a table which occurs in each subsequent edition, and also for the addition of the historical sketch. This sketch, which was written to satisfy complaints that Darwin had not sufficiently considered his predecessors in the general theory of evolution, had already appeared in a shorter form in the first German edition, as well as in the fourth American printing where it is called a preface; both of these appeared in 1860.
Stott takes the sketch as her starting point and writes about the history of evolution and natural history from Aristotle to Darwin. I’ve not read it yet, but Raffles liked it, and it seems good based on his review and yesterday’s interview, and it will probably be of interest to WEIT readers.
The standard academic history of the grand sweep of evolutionary biology, from the ancients to today, is Peter Bowler’s Evolution: The History of an Idea, now in it’s 3rd edition. My favorite history of evolution is The Discovery of Evolution, by David Young of the University of Melbourne. It covers less time than Bowler, starting with John Ray and Francis Willughby in the 17th century, but it is very well illustrated, and presents not just the history, but the biology as well, so you learn not just what ideas were propounded, but the evidence for those ideas as well. I strongly recommend it.
And, don’t confuse Stott’s book with Darwin’s Ghost: The Origin of Species Updated, by Jerry’s friend and colleague Steve Jones. Like WEIT, it’s an account of the evidence for evolution, in this case structured around Darwin’s chapter topics. Coincidentally, I just bought a copy last week.
__________________________________________________________
Bowler, P. 2003. Evolution: The History of an Idea. 3rd ed. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Darwin, C. 1861. On the Origin of Species. 3rd ed. John Murray, London. (full text: the ‘Sketch’ is on pp. xiii-xix; it was revised in later editions)
Darwin, C. 1871. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. John Murray, London. (full text)
Darwin, C.R. 1887. The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter. F. Darwin, ed. 2 vols. D. Appleton, New York. (full text of British edition)
Jones, S. 2000. Darwin’s Ghost: The Origin of Species Updated. Random House, New York.
Matthew, P. 1831. On Naval Timber and Arboriculture. Longman, London. (full text)
Stott, R. 2012. Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution. Spiegel and Grau, New York.
Young, D. 2007. The Discovery of Evolution. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.