Skip to content
  • News
  • »
  • History and Politics
  • »
  • Appeal made for missing Darwin notebook

    • Appeal made for missing Darwin notebook

    Date: 24/11/2009
    English Heritage has made a fresh appeal for the return of a missing notebook kept by Charles Darwin during his time on the Galapagos Islands.

    The appeal came yesterday (November 23rd), on the 150th anniversary of the first publication of On the Origin of Species and 30 years after the journal went missing.

    English Heritage thinks the book was stolen from Darwin's desk at Down House, where he wrote On the Origin of Species and his other major works, such as The Voyage of the Beagle, The Descent of Man and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

    While the original copy of the notebook is still missing, the journal was preserved on microfilm and has been made available online by English Heritage along with more than 300 sketches by the naturalist.

    Amongst other things, the lost notebook contains an account of Darwin's first encounter with a giant tortoise. He describes the creature as an 'immense turpin' which 'took little notice of me'.ADNFCR-2557-ID-19475639-ADNFCR
    Bookmark Options


    Foyles Recommends