The Autobiography of Charles Darwin | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by Sue Asscher

The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin
Edited by his Son
Francis Darwin

[My father's autobiographical recollections, given in the present chapter,
were written for his children,--and written without any thought that
they would ever be published. To many this may seem an impossibility;
but those who knew my father will understand how it was not only
possible, but natural. The autobiography bears the heading,
'Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character,' and end
with the following note:--"Aug. 3, 1876. This sketch of my life was
begun about May 28th at Hopedene (Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood's house
in Surrey.), and since then I have written for nearly an hour on most
afternoons." It will easily be understood that, in a narrative of a
personal and intimate kind written for his wife and children, passages
should occur which must here be omitted; and I have not thought it
necessary to indicate where such omissions are made. It has been found
necessary to make a few corrections of obvious verbal slips, but the
number of such alterations has been kept down to the minimum.--F.D.]
A German Editor having written to me for an account of the
development of my mind and character with some sketch of my
autobiography, I have thought that the attempt would amuse me, and
might possibly interest my children or their children. I know that it
would have interested me greatly to have read even so short and dull a

sketch of the mind of my grandfather, written by himself, and what he
thought and did, and how he worked. I have attempted to write the
following account of myself, as if I were a dead man in another world
looking back at my own life. Nor have I found this difficult, for life is
nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing.
I was born at Shrewsbury on February 12th, 1809, and my earliest
recollection goes back only to when I was a few months over four years
old, when we went to near Abergele for sea-bathing, and I recollect
some events and places there with some little distinctness.
My mother died in July 1817, when I was a little over eight years old,
and it is odd that I can remember hardly anything about her except her
death-bed, her black velvet gown, and her curiously constructed
work-table. In the spring of this same year I was sent to a day-school in
Shrewsbury, where I stayed a year. I have been told that I was much
slower in learning than my younger sister Catherine, and I believe that I
was in many ways a naughty boy.
By the time I went to this day-school (Kept by Rev. G. Case, minister
of the Unitarian Chapel in the High Street. Mrs. Darwin was a
Unitarian