CHARLES DARWIN

A worthy one-volume life of the eminent—and blessedly lucky—naturalist.

Is there anything left to say about the sage of Down House after Janet Browne’s magisterial two-part Charles Darwin (Vol. II, p. 851; Vol. I, 1995) and Adrian Desmond and James Moore’s Darwin (1992)? Apart from a few bits of data, perhaps not, as retired English business consultant Aydon gamely acknowledges. But there’s always room for interpretation, and in assessing the facts of Darwin’s life and its legacy, Aydon acquits himself very well indeed, showing a command not only of biographical matter and the considerable literature of Darwiniana but also of the complex science involved. Aydon emphasizes one salient fact at the outset: Darwin’s path to success and influence was made far easier, though by no means inevitable, by the happy accident that he was born wealthy, a fact Darwin realized while still a university student and that meant, as he wrote in his memoirs, “my father would leave me enough property to subsist on with some comfort” without Darwin’s having to do anything disagreeable, such as finding a job. Still, Aydon hastens to add, Darwin was not supercilious about his good fortune, and he worked endlessly at everything that caught his interest while taking time to be a devoted husband and father. Aydon gives a well-rounded, sometimes critical portrait of a man who, through “customary self-absorption,” could be less than generous in acknowledging those who helped him along the way—particularly the unfortunate Robert Fitzroy, the captain of HMS Beagle, whom Aydon presents with considerable sympathy. Indeed, Aydon devotes more attention to Fitzroy than have many biographers, arguing that Fitzroy provided not only the physical means for Darwin to make the five-year voyage of discovery that would open the way to evolutionary theory, but also intellectual stimulus; as he writes, “It is amazing that so little credit has been given to those thousands of hours of shipboard conversation in published accounts of Darwin’s intellectual development.”

A good place to start for those new to Darwin’s life and work.