Darwin, Erasmus
Entry updated 18 November 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1731-1802) UK physician, philosopher, inventor and poet; grandfather of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and of Francis Galton. Though he was noted as an inventor of devices (both built and theoretical) from water pumps to speaking machines to a mechanical bird (see Inventions), and though his work as an advocate of the sexual classificatory system of Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) (see Biology) was of considerable importance, it is for his speculative Poetry that Darwin is of interest to the sf field. In particular, The Loves of the Plants (1789) anonymous, which was incorporated into The Botanic Garden: A Poem, in Two Parts [for full title see Checklist below] (1791; rev 2017 2vols), conveys through its wooden though occasionally powerful couplets – and a narrative which, reversing Ovid, treats plants as people – a serious speculative message about the chronological depth of Evolution clearly presaging the revolutionary thoughts of his grandson. Extracts from this and other verse by Darwin are included, perhaps unjustly, in The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse (anth 1930; exp 1930; exp 1948), edited by D B Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee (1870-1956).
Darwin's prose work Zoonomia; Or, The Laws of Organic Life (1794; exp 1796 2vols; further exp 1801 4vols), and the posthumously published poem The Temple of Nature; Or, The Origin of Society (1803), both extend the argument, with a wealth of technological and scientific imagery evocative of imagined processes of Evolution. The extent to which science fired Darwin's imagination, together with his contemporary popularity, make him an important figure in Proto SF and his work an early outstanding success in terms of sf Prediction. He belonged to the period when the imagery of science first entered the consciousness of laymen in general. In his Erasmus Darwin sequence, comprising Erasmus Magister (coll of linked stories 1982) and The Amazing Dr Darwin (coll of linked stories 2002), Charles Sheffield made him into a kind of scientific investigator. [JC/PN]
Erasmus Darwin
born near Nottingham, Nottinghamshire: 12 December 1731
died Breadsall Priory, Derbyshire: 18 April 1802
works
- The Loves of the Plants (London: J Johnson, 1789) anonymous [poem: binding unknown/]
- The Botanic Garden: A Poem, in Two Parts; Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation; Part II: The Loves of the Plants (London: J Johnson, 1791) [poem in two parts: incorporating The Loves of the Plants above: binding unknown/]
- The Botanic Garden (London: Routledge, 2017) [poem: published in two volumes: edited by Allison Dushane and Adam Komisaruk: revised text of the above: notes explain its complex textual history: pb/]
- Zoonomia; Or, The Laws of Organic Life (London: J Johnson, 1794) [nonfiction: binding unknown/]
- Zoonomia; Or, The Laws of Organic Life (London: J Johnson, 1796) [nonfiction: rev in two volumes of the above: volume one contains revision of 1794 text: binding unknown/]
- Zoonomia; Or, The Laws of Organic Life (London: J Johnson, 1801) [nonfiction: rev in four volumes of the above: binding unknown/]
- Zoonomia; Or, The Laws of Organic Life (London: J Johnson, 1796) [nonfiction: rev in two volumes of the above: volume one contains revision of 1794 text: binding unknown/]
- The Temple of Nature; Or, The Origin of Society (London: J Johnson, 1803) [poem: binding unknown/]
- Cosmologia (Sheffield, South Yorkshire: Stuart Harris, 2002) [poetry: omni of the above title plus The Economy of Vegetation and The Loves of the Plants above: hb/]
about the author
- Basil Willey. Darwin and Butler: Two Versions of Evolution: The Hibbert Lectures 1959 (London: Chatto and Windus, 1960) [nonfiction: mostly with reference to his grandson: hb/nonpictorial]
- Desmond King-Hele. Erasmus Darwin (London: Macmillan, 1963) [nonfiction: hb/]
- Donald M Hassler. Erasmus Darwin (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1973) [nonfiction: chap: hb/]
- Donald M Hassler. Comedian as the Letter D: Erasmus Darwin's Comic Materialism (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973) [nonfiction: pb/]
- Desmond King-Hele. Doctor of Revolution: The Life and Genius of Erasmus Darwin (London: Faber and Faber, 1977) [nonfiction: hb/]
- Brian W Aldiss and David Wingrove. Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (London: Victor Gollancz, 1986) with David Wingrove [nonfiction: Chapter 1 discusses Darwin at length: hb/Don MacPherson]
- Jenny Uglow. The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future, 1730-1810 (London: Faber and Faber, 2002) [nonfiction: hb/Tim Byrne]
links
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