Darwin and Women focusses on Darwin's correspondence with women and on the lives of the women he knew and wrote to. It includes a large number of hitherto unpublished letters between members of Darwin's family and their friends that throw light on the lives of the women of his circle and their relationships, social and professional, with Darwin. The letters included are by turns entertaining, intriguing, and challenging, and are organised into thematic chapters, including botany and zoology as well as marriage and servants, that set them in an accessible narrative context. Darwin's famous remarks on women's intelligence in Descent of Man provide a recurring motif, and are discussed in the foreword by Gillian Beer, and in the introduction. The immediacy and variety of these texts make this an entertaining read which will suggest avenues for further research to students.
1. Friends
2. Marriage
3. Children Charissa Varma
4. Scientific wives and allies
5. Observing plants
6. Companion animals
7. Insects and angels
8. Observing humans
9. Editors
10. Writers and critics
11. Religion Paul White
12. Travellers
13. Servants and governesses
14. Ascent of woman
Samantha Evans is an associate editor of the Darwin Correspondence Project.
"[...] The book is aimed at anyone with an interest in Charles Darwin’s relationships with the women around him and his perspective on their role in different areas of society. When reflecting on the content of these letters, it is worth remembering the context in which they were written, in a Victorian England where notions of women’s attributes, social rights and participation in science were far removed from those that exist today, at least in the Western world. Instructive, interesting and entertaining, Darwin and Women: A Select on of Letters shows the importance for research and learning of the interrelationships between people of science and their knowledge."
– Margarita Hernandez Laille FLS, The Linnean 36(1), April 2020
"This magpie-eyed selection illuminates [Darwin's] relationships with the women in his family and social circle, as well as those who were engaged in similar scientific studies."
– Helen Brown, Sunday Telegraph
"Darwin and Women contains a wealth of fascinating stories about the lives of nineteenth century women and the slow growth in professionalisation of their work. [...] The book is as entertaining as it is enlightening, and allows us to hear many of the voices of women that would otherwise be lost to history."
– Ann Kennedy Smith, Dublin Review of Books