This is an auction for ANNIE’S BOX: CHARLES DARWIN - HIS DAUGHTER & HUMAN EVOLUTION by Randal Keynes.

Amazon.com review:

“In this intimate portrait of the great naturalist as devoted family man, Keynes describes how Charles Darwin's "life and his science were all of a piece." The great-great-grandson of the scientist, Keynes uses published documents as well as family papers and artifacts to show how Darwin's thinking on evolution was influenced by his deep attachment to his wife and children. In particular, his anguish over his 10-year-old daughter Annie's death sharpened his conviction that the operation of natural laws had nothing to do with divine intervention or morality. Keynes shows that much of Darwin's intellectual struggle in writing ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES AND THE DESCENT OF MAN arose from his efforts to understand the role of suffering and death in the natural order of the world. Early in his career, Darwin saw the indifference of natural law as an answer to the era's religious doubts about how a benevolent god could permit human misery; cruelty and pain, he argued, should not be seen as moral issues, but as inevitable outcomes of nature. After Annie's death, however, Darwin's views darkened, and in a private letter he railed against the "clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature!" Keynes produces a moving tribute to a thinker.”

More very favourable reviews on Amazon.com.

Large format (trade) paperback 2001.

331 pages + 32 pages of photographs.

Good condition.

The cost of shipping is $4.95 (ordinary post) or $6.95 (tracked mail). If you are on rural delivery and want tracked mail, the shipping cost will be $9.95.

There is of course no charge for shipping if you collect this book from my shop in Palmerston North following the auction.

Payment within seven days, please.