About two years ago I visited the lovely English town of Malvern and went seeking a grave in the churchyard of Great Malvern Priory. It was the grave of Annie Darwin, eldest daughter and second child of Charles Darwin and his wife Emma (she was also his cousin). Annie was born in 1841, but in 1849 she caught scarlet fever which greatly weakened her and she might also have been suffering from tuberculosis. Emma was expecting another baby in 1851.
Charles took his beloved daughter to Malvern, a spa town, in the hopes of finding a cure, but Annie died there, aged only ten. The house where she died is today marked with a plaque.
Charles was devastated by the death of his daughter – he ceased attending church after that sad time and began to totally doubt the idea of religious consolation and of a benevolent God who could cause the deaths of innocent infants. Annie had been a very affectionate child, very neat and tidy, and she loved making things for her dolls.
Darwin’s great-great-grandson Randal Keynes found a box of keepsakes connected with Annie, which Charles and Emma had saved as a memento of their lost child. This workbox became the focus of Keynes’s excellent book, Annie’s Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution which was published in 2001. In this book, he examines the various keepsakes and shows how they cast light on Darwin’s personality and his work. He paints a rich portrait of Darwin’s domestic life, as husband and father of a large family (the Darwins had ten children). Emma had a strong religious faith and was deeply worried by her husband’s growing scepticism. He tells the poignant story of the loss of an adored child. Darwin, always the keen observer, had fixed his scientific eye on his children, observing their development in the nursery, and connecting it with the theories that were developing in his mind. Darwin was a keen novel reader all his life. It is not surprising that, after Annie’s death, he avoided sad books and turned instead to happier and much-loved novelists, such as Jane Austen.
This book is a biography of one of the greatest men of all time, but it is also the story of the Victorian era, of a father who was more involved than were most Victorian papas, and it is a story about loss and how we come to terms with death. It is hardly surprising that a book written by a direct descendent should present a rather saintly portrait of Darwin, but he does seem to have been a genuinely nice man, so I didn’t find that aspect overdone. I can really recommend this book, which I found intriguing and moving.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear what you think, so let me know by leaving a comment.
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