The literature on Darwin is overwhelmingly large, but the following books are a useful supplement.
Darwin’s Autobiography (Oxford University Press, 1974) provides a charming introduction, and for those who feel daunted by the full text of The Origin of Species (Penguin), The Illustrated Origin, abridged and introduced by Richard E. Leakey (Faber, 1979) is an admirable substitute.
Loren Eiseley’s Darwin Century (Gollancz, 1957) paints a vivid picture, as does the comprehensive biography Darwin by Adrian Desmond and James Moore (Michael Joseph, 1991), and these can be supplemented by the first-class series of essays edited by Bentley Glass, Forerunners of Darwin 1745-1859 (Johns Hopkins Press, 1959).
Ernst Mayr is one of the greatest authorities on evolutionary theory, and although they sometimes make hard reading, his Evolution and the Diversity of Life (Belknap: Harvard University Press, 1976) and Animal Species and Evolution (Harvard University Press, 1963) provide unrivalled accounts of many aspects of this difficult subject. Stephen Jay Gould’s essays are also authoritative, but are readily accessible to the lay-person - Ever since Darwin (Penguin, 1981) and The Panda’s Thumb (Norton, 1980). Richard Dawkins’ controversial work The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 1989), as long as one regards the title as a polemical metaphor, provides a useful picture of the way evolutionary thought has developed since the discovery of DNA. François Jacob’s books on evolution, The Logic of Life and The Possible and the Actual (Pantheon Books, New York, 1982) are excellent and clear.
Most of the books mentioned above echo the conventional, not to say ‘conservative’, approach which I have deliberately adopted in the effort to make this difficult subject accessible to the beginner. It could be argued that I have culpably overlooked the social implications of evolutionary thought. As a corrective, I advise the reader to consult some progressive sources, e.g. Images of the Earth edited by L.J. Jordanova and Roy S. Porter (Chalfont St. Giles: British Society for the History of Science, 1979) and Robert M. Young’s many articles. Useful discussion can be found in the Open University, Beliefs in Science: An Introduction.
Jonathan Miller studied natural sciences at Cambridge University and subsequently qualified as a Doctor of Medicine in 1959. After working as a pathologist in Cambridge, he took up a research fellowship in the History of Medicine at University College, London. Since then, he has become well known in Britain, Europe and America as a writer and a director of plays and operas. He is also known for his television series on the history of medicine, The Body in Question and his pop-up book, The Human Body.
Borin Van Loon is also the illustrator of Introducing Mathematics, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Buddha, Genetics, Eastern Philosophy and Media Studies. He is a surrealist artist whose work ranges from oil paintings to a cut-out book on DNA.