Yes! You can now read the complete works of Charles Darwin free, online. Since an original copy of The Origin will set you back roughly $50,000, last I heard, this is a really good deal.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This link sent me to nothing. Does this confirm or disprove evolution/ID? ;) Gotta wake up now, shake off the last of my ketones. Have a final at 8. Maybe after the masses drift toward other amusements I’ll be able to link. I sure hope so. I don’t have $50,000.
I was lucky enough to see a leather-bound 1st edition of origin in the NHM when i worked there about 5 years ago, it was valued at around £20 000.
The Botany section also has Darwin’s own copy, complete with his handwritten notes and corrections, but unfortunately I missed that one. Still, i would hate to even guess at it’s value.
I love what the University has done, but I just wish they’d visited the design department first! It burns!
I like how they even scanned in the green spines of the John Murray editions — that’s the most distinguishing feature of first and early editions of Darwin’s works.
Site seems down. My packets get as far as route-cent-3.cam.ac.uk and then drop into the aether. I’m guessing this is a tech problem that will be resolved presently.
Until Darwin-Online.org comes back, here is a link that contains some works- in HTML form :(.
http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin2/texts.html
The site seems to be struggling under the weight of interest: maybe it needs some more intelligent design. Its launch got lots of good Darwinian coverage on the British media:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6064364.stm
Great job by John van der Wyhe at Cambridge. Randal Keynes (Darwin great great grandson) says that the ones to look at are the notebooks in which he wrote his immediate thoughts while ashore.
Rubbish. I have an original John Murray copy of the Origin. Granted, it’s the posthumous 8th cheap edition, and it’s falling apart. But it only cost me $5…
This is just shameless showing off on my part, but I’ve rifled through Darwin’s correspondence at the University library in Cambridge. The man was a prodigious correspondent, as I’m sure you know, and it was extremely moving to see the deterioration in his handwriting in the last few months of his life, which is something you don’t see when books quote excerpts. Dying, but still thinking.
On a tangential note, does everybody have their own favourite edition of the ‘Origin’, or is that being a bit wanky?
I thought everyone liked the first edition.
I’ve always been able to read Darwin online. I think almost everything is on Project Gutenberg, but I downloaded the Origin and a couple of others into my Microsoft Reader for free from U.Virginia, I think. I read a lot of books online because my hands are often too weak to hold heavy books for very long. But perhaps you are talking about scanned pages from actual books, in which case I will just shut up and go away. But before I do, I will add that there are a lot of Canadian books scanned online this way, including some of the older naturalists. I just find MS Reader easier to use.
that sucked and i didnt get wat i was looking for u looser!@!!!!!!