Book Review: Annie's Box

Keynes, Randal. Annie’s Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution. London: Fourth Estate, 2001 (Published in the North America in 2002 under the title Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution: New York: Riverhead Books, 2002)


If you’re curious about Charles Darwin, the man, look no further than Randal Keynes’ touching biography of his great-great-uncle. It’s all here: from the Darwins’ marriage and first home in London to the details of life at Downe House, Emma’s widowhood, and Annie’s Box, a writing-case which symbolizes the heartbreaking death of Darwin's ten-year-old daughter. The account spans from the time Darwin decided to “Marry – Marry – Marry. Q.E.D.” in 1938, dipping into some history at Cambridge and aboard the Beagle, until Emma’s death in 1896, and includes a deeply personal look at life along the way.

Keynes pays particular attention to Darwin as husband and father. Darwin, who adored his family, exhibited “a fine degree of paternal fervour” with his ten children, playing on his hands and knees with them, never silencing their "howls and screams,” and even allowing them into his study while he worked. Of all the children, Darwin doted most on Annie, his cherished, eldest daughter, who was the apple of her devoted father's eye.

On April 23, 1851, just two days after Easter, Annie died, possibly from tuberculosis. Paradoxically, Darwin’s religiosity suffered its final blow at this holiest time of year for Christians. Separated from his wife during Annie’s demise, Darwin could not draw on Emma’s religious fortitude to comfort him or to interpret Annie’s death, and he could not find the consolation he needed from the Church. Although Darwin’s theory of evolution was already well developed by the time Annie died, Keynes juxtaposes Darwin’s darkening sense of nature (and his efforts to understand suffering and death) with his continued work on the Origin of Species.

Keynes’ ultimate thesis is that Darwin’s private "life and his science were all of a piece," which he aptly portrays. The narrative left me with a greater appreciation of an iconic, and often misunderstood, man, someone who was both a brilliant scientist and a loving human being who made time in life for the things that matter most: family and friends.

Roxanne Enman

(Posted as The Heart of Charles Darwin’s “Insufferable Grief” on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1841150606/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img)

Darwin's Mockingbirds at the Natural History Museum

We’ve all heard about Darwin’s finches. Now, London's Natural History Museum is giving us the chance to see two never-before-exhibited mockingbirds collected by Charles Darwin in the Galapagos.

Like the finches, differences in these birds first led Darwin to muse about the "stability of species" in June 1836. They go on display in mid-November.

Randal Keynes, Darwin's great-great-grandson (pictured left), notes that the gifted naturalist noticed " … the small differences between the two birds on … two [different] islands” and realized it was a “most remarkable fact in the distribution of organic beings."

Ultimately, of course, Darwin concluded that all creatures had descended, with modification, from common ancestors.

The BBC article can be accessed here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7713340.stm

Roxanne Enman

Darwin on Film

Break out the popcorn! To celebrate the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth, a movie showcasing his private life will hit the big screen in 2009. “Annie’s Box,” written by Randal Keynes (Darwin’s great-great grandson), serves as inspiration for a close-up look at the naturalist’s private life, as a husband and a father, in the years leading up to the publication of “On The Origin of Species”. The movie will highlight Darwin’s relationship with his eldest daughter, Annie, who died at the age of 10 in 1851. Keynes believes that Darwin’s grief “influenced some of his most important ideas” and that Annie’s death contributed to his dwindling belief in Christianity (http://www.aboutdarwin.com/news/darwin_news.html).

Update: I found a few more details about the film, which has the working title, Creation. Paul Bettany will play Darwin, depicting him as someone who comes to question God’s role in life despite the views of his deeply religious wife, played by Jennifer Connelly (http://www.cinematical.com/2008/09/05/jennifer-connelly-and-paul-bettany-debate-creation/).

Roxanne Enman