Darwin's Ghosts: In Search of the First Evolutionists

Christmas, 1859. Just one month after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Darwin received a letter that deeply unsettled him. He had expected criticism. Letters were arriving every day like swarms, some expressing praise, most outrage and accusations of heresy. But the letter from the Reverend Powell was different. It accused Darwin of failing to acknowledge his predecessors, of having taken credit for a theory that had already been discovered by others, Baden Powell himself and Darwin's own grandfather among them. For all the excuses that leapt to mind - publication had been rushed; he hadn't been well - Darwin knew he had made a grave error in omitting to mention his intellectual forebears. Yet when he tried to trace these natural philosophers, he found that history had already forgotten them... In Darwin's Ghosts, historian and novelist Rebecca Stott rediscovers Aristotle walking the shores of Lesbos with his pupils and Leonardo da Vinci searching for fossils in the mine shafts of the Tuscan hills; Diderot, in Paris, under the surveillance of the secret police, exploring the origins of species, and the brilliant naturalists of the Jardin de Plantes first recognising proof of evolutionary change in the natural history collections stolen during the Napoleonic wars. Darwin's Ghosts is a masterful retelling of the collective daring of a few like-minded men who had the imagination to speculate on nature's ways and the courage to publish at a time when to do so, for political as well as religious reasons, was to risk everything. More than a tale of mummified birds, inland lagoons, Bedouin nomads, secret police files, microscopes and curiosity cabinets, Darwin's Ghosts is the story of an idea that would change the modern world.

About the Author :
Rebecca Stott is a novelist and historian. She is Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and an Affiliated Scholar at the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University. She is the author of eleven books including three non-fiction history of science books: Darwin and the Barnacle, Theatres of Glass: The Woman who Brought the Sea to the City and Oyster, two historical novels, and most recently the bestselling Ghostwalk, shortlisted for the Jelf First Novel Award and the Society of Authors First Book Award, and The Coral Thief, both of which have been published in many different countries. She is regularly asked to contribute to radio and TV documentaries and arts programmes. Rebecca Stott lives in Cambridge.

Review :
Extraordinarily wide-ranging and engaging ... Stott's gifts as a novelist mean that each of her subjects emerges as living in ordinary weather and among objects, family and political difficulties ... She draws on an array of scholarship and assembles it into an intricate sequence of stories and investigations that are her own ... Gripping Riveting ... told with style and historical nous ... Stott has done a wonderful job in showing just how many extraordinary people had speculated on where we came from before the great theorist dispelled any doubts A fascinating history of an idea that is crucial to our understand of life on earth ***** Mesmerising, colourful and often moving ... a richly drawn exploration of the key figures on Darwin's list ... this many threaded story of intellectual development is hypnotic. The subject is science, but Stott has a novelist's confidence ... this is a sympathetic examination of the innate human qualities of curiosity and inquiry Thrilling ... impressively researched ... A gripping and ambitious history of science which gives a vivid sense of just how many forebears Darwin had; even if none of them can match the man himself Rebecca Stott's beautifully written and compelling book is the story of some of the men - and they were all men - who came before, and how the evolution of their ideas mirrors the evolution of species ... These mavericks and heretics put their lives on the line. Finally, they are getting the credit they deserve Clever, compassionate and compellingly written, Stott has interwoven history and science to enchanting effect. The evolution of the theory of evolution is a brilliant idea for a book, and she has realised it wonderfully Stott's research is broad and unerring; her book is wonderful ... An exhilerating romp through 2,000 years of fascinating scientific history From Aristotle onwards, evolutionists have - thank God - always been a quarrelsome lot; and not much has changed. Rebecca Stott shows how dispute, prejudice and rage have accompanied their science from the very beginning. Darwin's Ghosts is a gripping history of the history of life and of those who have studied it, with plenty of lessons for today - perhaps for today's biologists most of all A masterful retelling of the collective daring of a few like-minded men who had the courage to publish their speculations at a time when to do so, for political as well as religious reasons, was to risk everything. It is the story of an idea that would change the modern world Impressive scholarship and compelling narrative; a fine book Charles Darwin provided the mechanism for the evolution of the exquisite adaptations found in plants and animals but the awareness that species can change had been growing long before him. With wonderful clarity Rebecca Stott traces how ideas about biological evolution themselves evolved in the minds of great biologists from Aristotle onwards. Darwin would have loved this brilliant book - and so do I Ms. Stott stages sharply drawn encounters and depicts domestic lives and social worlds in rich and convincing detail ... captures the breathless excitement of investigation on the cusp of the unknown ... a lively, original book It takes great skill and scholarship to tell the story well, and Rebecca Stott does it wonderfully. Here is a rich tale indeed. It needs a novelist like Rebecca Stott to get to grips with it; and so she does, triumphantly Stott provides the lucid intellectual genealogy of evolution that the great man could not Stott’s lively, original history of evolutionary ideas flows easily across continents and centuries The ghosts so richly described in Ms Stott's enjoyable book are the descendants of Aristotle and Bacon and the ancestors of today's scientists In telling the stories of these men, Ms. Stott - who is also a novelist - writes with a novelist's flair ... richly described