Darwin’s Personal Library Goes Digital: 330 Books Online

When Charles Dar­win fin­ished read­ing Charles Lyel­l’s Prin­ci­ples of Geol­o­gy, a book sug­gest­ing that there are clear lim­its to the vari­a­tion of species, he wrote in the mar­gins: “If this were true adios the­o­ry.” It’s a great piece of mar­gin­a­lia. And it’s just one of many com­ments that adorn books in Dar­win’s per­son­al library, and help illu­mi­nate his intel­lec­tu­al path to writ­ing On The Ori­gin Of Species (1859).

Thanks to Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty library and sev­er­al part­ners, 330 of Dar­win’s most heav­i­ly anno­tat­ed texts have now been dig­i­tized and made avail­able online at the web­site of the Bio­di­ver­si­ty Her­itage Library. More will come in due time. You can begin your tour here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dar­win’s Dan­ger­ous Idea

Dar­win’s Lega­cy

via Cam­bridge News (with thanks to Kirstin But­ler and Brain­Pick­er)