Beschreibung:

DARWIN, CHARLES]. BIBLE, New Testament, Greek . [Greek]. Novum Testamentum: juxta exemplar millianum...editio Secunda. London: G. and B. Whittaker, 1820. 8vo, 176 x 105 mm. (6 15/16 x 4 3/16 in.), contemporary sheep backed in calf, edges blue-sprinkled, by Broadbere (binder's ticket on front pastedown), rubbed with some loss to leather, upper inner hinge split, occasional slight soiling or spotting . Greek letter, double column. CHARLES DARWIN'S COPY, with his signature ("C. Darwin") on front flyleaf. THIS GREEK NEW TESTAMENT ALMOST CERTAINLY ACCOMPANIED DARWIN ON HIS MOMENTOUS FIVE-YEAR VOYAGE ABOARD H.M.S. BEAGLE. Through the intercession of his mentor John Stevens Henslow, at the age of 22 Darwin was invited to join "the Admiralty survey ship Beagle under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy as unpaid naturalist on a voyage to survey the coasts of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Peru...[and] some Pacific islands... The five years of the voyage were the most important event in Darwin's life and in the history of biological science. Darwin sailed with no formal scientific training. He returned a hard-headed man of science..." (DSB). A fortnight before his departure, little suspecting either the revolutionary outcome of the investigations that lay before him or the persistent sea-sickness that would plague him throughout the journey, Darwin, already a man of methodical and steady habits, fretted in his diary at the diffuse nature of his assignments and sketched out a daily routine: "...I am afraid I shall be quite overwhelmed with the numbers of subjects [23] which I ought to take into hand. It is difficult to mark out any plan & without method on ship-board I am sure little will be done.--The principal objects are 1st, collecting observing & reading in all branches of Natural history that I possibly can manage. Observations in Meteorology.-- French & Spanish, Mathematics, & a little Classics, perhaps not more than Greek Testament on Sundays. I hope generally to have some one English book in hand for my amusement, exclusive of the above mentioned branches..." (entry for Dec. 13, 1831, Charles Darwin's Beagle Diary , ed. Richard Darwin Keynes, Cambridge 1988, p. 13). While one may doubt that once caught up in the necessity of recording his thousands of discoveries Darwin adhered to his pious dominical plan, it is clear from this letter that a Greek edition of the New Testament accompanied him aboard ship. Cf. the list of "books on the Beagle" in Darwin's Correspondence , F. Burkhardt and S. Smith eds., vol. I (Cambridge 1985), p. 563, citing a "New Testament (Greek)" on the basis of the aforementioned diary entry. (As the editors were unaware of the volume's whereabouts, the particulars of the copy are undescribed). Provenance : William Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin's son), bookplate. Loosely inserted is an autograph letter signed ("F. Darwin"), from Darwin's son Francis to an unidentified female correspondent, 23 July [19]19, Brookthorpe, Gloucester, 2 pp., 8vo . The Bible has remained in the Darwin family until the present day.