Experimental Blog #90

Comments on "The Darwin Archipelago" - The Naturalist's Career Beyond "Origin of Species" by Steve Jones

"The Voyage of the Beagle" is a very interesting travel book that many people continue to read. "The Origin of Species" is Charles Darwin's famous scientific book, and it is also read by people today. However, these 2 books represent only about 15% of Darwin's lifetime publication.

Charles Darwin wrote more than a dozen other equally well written, "in good, plain Victorian prose", scientific books. They cover various subjects: "Barnacles"{most exhaustively}, "Orchids and Insects", "Variation under Domestication", "The Descent of Man", "Expression of the Emotions", "Insectivorous Plants", "Climbing Plants", "Cross and Self-Fertilisation", "Forms of Flowers", "Movement in Plants", and "Formation of Vegetable Mould by Earthworms". These books make up what the "eminent evolutionary biologist" Steve Jones calls the "Darwin Archipelago". All of these subjects, and others, are expertly brought up to date.

The last chapter, or "Envoi", of this book is entitled "Darwin's Island", which is what Steve Jones says the world has now become; that is, the world is no longer an "archipelago" of far more distinct biological environments.