Charles Robert Darwin – författare

The author of this life of Erasmus Darwin, published in 1879, is given as Ernst Krause (1839-1903) a German biologist, but in fact more than half the book is a 'preliminary notice' by Charles Darwin, who explains in the preface that he has written it because of his access to family papers which add 'to the knowledge of Erasmus Darwin's character'. Krause wrote his original article in a German periodical because, in turn, he was intrigued by a reference made by Charles Darwin in the later editions of On the Origin of Species to his grandfather's anticipation in his Zoonomia (also reissued in this series) of Lamarckian theory: 'I thought immediately ... that this ancestor of his must certainly deserve considerable credit in connection with the history of the Darwinian theory.' The German text was translated by W. S. Dallas, who had previously collaborated with Darwin as both indexer and translator.

When it was first published, On the Origin of Species caused a primordial shift in our conception of human identity and purpose. Exploring ideas of natural selection, speciation and the struggle for survival, the book made the central debates of evolutionary biology accessible to non-specialist readers.