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Article: Charles Darwin's Letters: A Selection 1825-1859
- Article from:
- Natural History
- Article date:
- May 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright American Museum of Natural History May 1996. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Charles Darwin's Letters: A Selection 1825-1859, edited by Frederick Burkhardt. Cambridge University Press, $21.95; 272 pp.
Review
Charles Darwin could ride horseback with gauchos, climb mountains, stuff birds, dissect barnacles, excavate fossil skeletons, breed orchids and pigeons, and write books that changed Western thought. One thing Charles Darwin could not do was throw anything away. His pack rat habits--begun in childhood with prized pebbles, birds' nests, and beetles--later stood him in good stead as one of the greatest natural history collectors of all time. But just as he carefully preserved every limpet and giant sloth tooth from his voyage around the globe, he also saved almost ...