Doctor Darwin.
1930PW1198London:: J. M. Dent & Sons 1930. 1930. First edition. 8vo. xi 1 242 2 pp. 12 plates index; some foxing. Pale green cloth black-printed green dust-jacket; jacket rear torn. Ownership inscription of J. Edmonds Oxford. Scarce in jacket. Very good. "The first American publication of a thirty-odd year old portrait of Erasmus Darwin grandfather of the famous Charles and great three times grandfather of author Pearson the last probably accounting not only for the intimacies involved but also the reverence indulged in. Darwin was 18th century England's physician par excellence George III wanted him but didn't get him; Darwin was too democratic; he was also a philosopher a poet and head mandarin of the Lunar Society whose celebrated enclave held Watt of the steam engine Wedgwood of pots and Priestley of oxygen. Darwin was a stutterer who looked twice his age; nevertheless his sallies never missed nor was his sexual appetite ever starved. Twice married and many more times a father his home was a happy one; a failing though- grumpy disapproval of all things spiritual- cost him a son a wistful lad who ended it all at the bottom of the River Derwent. Pearson's style here- it has changed since then- is pretty much drawing-room English comfortably ensconced with wit and stage-bearded with wisdom. The hyperbole of course gets heavy-handed: was Darwin really the progenitor of eugenics aeroplanes submarines psychoanalysis That he was the "parent of Creative Evolution" one can doubt a doctrine made unfashionable ironically enough by his grandson. Put it all down as a bunched-together biography- incidents anecdotes character studies-which in its fustily fastidious way is fascinating. And if Darwin as a personality doesn't emerge as engaging as he was intellectually extraordinary well one can't have everything especially all in one family." Kirkus Reviews. J. M. Dent & Sons, 1930. hardcover books
