Product Description

A gorgeous gift and a landmark work that is an essential addition to everyone's personal library. Never before have the four great works of Charles Darwin—Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle (1845), The Origin of Species  (1859), The Descent of Man  (1871), and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals  (1872)— been collected under one cover. Undertaking this challenging endeavor 123 years after Darwin's death, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Edward O. Wilson has written an introductory essay for the occasion, while providing new, insightful introductions to each of the four volumes and an afterword that examines the fate of evolutionary theory in an era of religious resistance. In addition, Wilson has crafted a creative new index to accompany these four texts, which links the nineteenth-century, Darwinian evolutionary concepts to contemporary biological thought. Beautifully slipcased, and including restored versions of the original illustrations, From So Simple a Beginning turns our attention to the astounding power of the natural creative process and the magnificence of its products. 101 illustrations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30515 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 4
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1706 pages

About the Author
Edward O. Wilson is the author of more than twenty books, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Ants and The Naturalist. Born and raised in Alabama, the Harvard biologist makes his home in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Darwin's fine writing is not entirely well served here
Darwin was not just a top-notch scientist but also a gifted author. He had a very lively mind, and he read everything, which means he had a gift for finding just the right example to illustrate his point. And he always tries to make his case with modesty and thoughtfulness, the best way to convince a skeptic.

This edition of Darwin's four most famous works is beautifully printed and physically attractive. It's also sturdily bound, a good idea given the huge page count. However, there are two aspects of this edition that I regret:

--The footnotes are all printed as endnotes, so you have to flip back and forth. (This seems so strange to me: any word processing program can handle footnotes without difficulty, so why can't publishers cope with them?)

--I also regret that the distinguished editor, E. O. Wilson, did not add his own footnotes. When I read Darwin's more speculative remarks, I'd like to know: "Did this pan out; was Darwin in fact right on this point?". The books would benefit greatly from follow-up remarks, in light of the huge progress made in evolutionary theory since Darwin's day. Wilson's own vast knowledge would have made him an ideal candidate to provide such commentary.

But don't let my quibbles deter you. These books are deeply inspiring and very much worth your time.

Best One-Volume Collection of Darwin's Primary Works
I know of at least three publishers, Norton, Running Press and Barnes & Noble, who have recently come out with single volume collections of Darwin's four major works. This particular collection published by Norton is by far the most complete and useful. First of all the book has been edited by the eminent Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson. Wilson provides an introductory essay for the collection and separate introductions for the four books. The essays are clear and informative, though I would have liked them to be longer. Still we are provided with separate indexes for all four books including a general index. The Running Press collection, by comparison, lacks an index and has, furthermore, had most illustrations removed.

The only complaint I have about the Norton book is that Darwin's footnotes have been converted to endnotes. A bit of an annoyance.

The most important idea ever presented...
I think it was Gould who lamented the fact that so few people have actually read Darwin. I'll admit that he's not always easy reading but it's almost always rewarding and this small collection puts his four primary works right on your desk.

Darwin's writings are far from the last word on evolution and natural selection and enormous strides have been made since he first presented his ideas. That doesn't diminish the importance of these works though. Feynman always went back to the original authors in his study of physics and found that it gave him a tremendous edge in understanding new ideas: once you have a firm foundation and basis of understanding it's easier to see how new ideas fit in or change the central dogma. In the same way these volumes are necessary for an understanding of the historical questions concerning evolution and for the still current debates.

I found the introduction and notes by Wilson to be a real help that added to the text. Darwin's ideas are seminal and still so controversial to out culture at large that we still fight over them. Reading through this collection can help gain a deeper perspective into Darwin, his ideas, and the entire study of evolution.