In a recent blog entry, Cambridge classicist, Mary Beard, related her recent confession that despite being the biographer of classicist and pioneer among female academics, Jane Harrison, she (Beard) had never systematically read one of Harrison’s major works. This made me slightly better about one of the lacunae in my own reading. Here goes – despite having written a PhD that encompassed mid-Victorian crises of faith, I have never read Darwin’s On the origin of species cover to cover. I had picked at bits and pieces of it, and read around it, but had always treated it as an artefact and a trigger rather than a text in its own right.
The twin Darwin anniversaries this year seemed to present a good opportunity to rectify this. Do I understand more about Darwin’s thought as a result? Probably not – although I can recommend the Oxford World Classics edition which has a rather good introduction from Gillian Beer. I do now however have a smug sense of completion…
Given that Darwin spent two years studying medicine in Edinburgh, it seemed appropriate to have read this while on a quick shopping trip to the Scottish capital. Worth mentioning that I had a lovely lunch at a vegetarian restaurant, David Bann (where the waiter offered his own opinion on the quality of Darwin’s writing), and I picked up a couple of lovely pairs of Harris Tweed shoes from Ness.
No, nothing to do with Darwin, but deserving of a mention!
…the purple version of these – my toast rack shoes.
