Cover of Erasmus Darwin

Erasmus Darwin

This study of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) brings from semi-obscurity a man who was anything but obscure in his own day. Famous as the finest doctor of his time, a best-selling poet, and a prolific inventor, he also propounded many scientific theories, most notably that of evolution. Concerning this, C. D. Darlington in his biography of Charles Darwin wrote: "A convincing argument appeared for the first time ... in the work of Darwin's grandfather at the end of the eighteenth century." A prophet even with honor in his own country, he was while he lived compared to Da Vinci and the contemporary Goethe. Mr. King-Hele writes vividly, reviewing Dr. Darwin's achievements and assessing his significance for our times. He also examines his personality, his chief literary works, and his influence on the great Romantic poets and the first and most famous piece of science fiction, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.—Dust jacket.

Audience
adult
Length
short · 183 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Erasmus Darwin? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Erasmus Darwin. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Grinnell Shares natural history, naturalists, biography
  2. American women afield Shares natural history, naturalists, biography
  3. The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and Its Transformations in Early Modern China Shares doctors, naturalists, natural history
  4. Footsteps in the jungle Shares naturalists, natural history, biography

“If you want more of the same (science about doctors), start with these.”

  1. Equal Partners: A Physician's Call for a New Spirit of Medicine
  2. Explorers of the body
  3. Bold Women of Medicine
  4. The doctor, the detective and Arthur Conan Doyle

“If it was the naturalists that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. South Carolina Naturalists: An Anthology, 1700-1860
  2. Science, race, and religion in the American South
  3. A naturalist's scrapbook
  4. Driftwood Valley

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Mary Leapor
  2. Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine
  3. African American inventors
  4. Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems