Darwin: A Biography

The definitive biography of Charles Darwin--now in one abridged and fully updated volume

Based on the two-volume National Book Critics Circle Award-winning biography hailed as "the definitive Darwin biography" (Newsday) - "a wonderful and well-rounded portrait" (The Washington Post) - and "magnificent" and "irresistible" (The Sunday Times)

Janet Browne's award-winning, two-volume biography of Charles Darwin has been described by many reviewers as the definitive biography of the father of evolution. Now, Browne has skillfully distilled and fully revised the work into a concise yet comprehensive one-volume biography that offers significant new interpretations of Darwin and the scientific and political legacy of his discoveries.

Few men shook the Victorian world like Darwin did, and his story is in many ways that of the nineteenth century. His theory of evolution was born in the age of empire and had its greatest effect in the age of capitalism. It was to change the course of science, culture, and history, and deeply influence literature, art, philosophy, religion, politics, and economics. This magisterial biography follows Darwin from his early life and adventures on HMS Beagle to the tumult of becoming one of the first scientific celebrities with the publication of the Origin of Species. Through personal letters and archives, Browne describes the processes that brought the idea of evolution by natural selection into British society and beyond, especially Darwin's relationship with Alfred Russel Wallace, who simultaneously proposed the same theory, and with the many people who helped and supported Darwin, including his wife Emma Wedgwood. Combining the best elements of social and intellectual biography, Browne places Darwin in cultural context and integrates his ideas with his private life.

Vivid, revealing, and compellingly readable, Darwin is the indispensable biography of a gentleman naturalist who would become one of the most important, influential, and controversial scientists of all time.

Author: Janet Browne
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 06/30/2026
Pages: 624
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.25lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.20w x 1.90d
ISBN: 9780691232256

About the Author
Janet Browne, one of the world's leading experts on Charles Darwin, is the Aramont Professor Emerita of the History of Science at Harvard University. Her books include the acclaimed two-volume biography, Charles Darwin: Voyaging and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (both Princeton), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and the Pfizer Prize from the History of Science Society. She is also the editor of The Quotable Darwin (Princeton) and the author of Darwin's Origin of Species: A Biography. She was on the editorial team of the Darwin Correspondence Project at the University of Cambridge, which published Darwin's correspondence in thirty volumes.