The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
Darwin wrote it for his children, an hour each afternoon, and never meant it published. He is candid about losing his faith and his taste for poetry.
Written for his children in his final years, an hour each afternoon, and never intended for publication. Darwin is candid about his loss of religious feeling, his atrophied taste for poetry and music, and his own limitations. It is a private reckoning from the man whose public work reorganised biology, and the tone is closer to self-assessment than to memoir.
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Maria Popova
In his final years, Darwin set aside an hour each afternoon to reflect on his life and to impart the private cosmogony of meaning he had discovered in his seven decades. In a set of autobiographical sketches he wrote for his children, bearing the heading “Recollections of the Development of My Mind and Character,” he considered what makes us human, what makes us happy, and what makes life worth living. After his death, finding in these notes immense insight and universal value, his children edited and published them as The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (public library).
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