Darwin's notebooks and reading lists
An introduction by John van Wyhe
During the voyage of the Beagle Darwin used field notebooks, mostly away from the ship. Shortly after the end of the voyage he began to use one of them, the Red notebook, for theoretical speculations, especially on geology and the formation of coral reefs. His note taking continued in his old Edinburgh notebook and his St Helena Model notebook before opening a new series of notebooks for theoretical work, termed notebooks on geology, transmutation of species and metaphysical enquiries by the editors of the definitive edition.1 Darwin simply lettered their covers A, B, C, D etc. (The inventor William Henry Fox Talbot also titled his notebooks in the same way.) Darwin had already become convinced of transmutation, or evolution, before opening the new notebooks.
These notebooks reveal in detail his thinking and research and gradual illumination of species questions - where do species come from? How are they related and how do they become adapted? The famous sketch on the right is from Darwin's Notebook B and depicts the branching descent with modification which he realized could explain the relationships between species in the same class or family. The most ancient forms are at the bottom and their descendant types branch off irregularly. The lines with a crossed end are existing species or lineages and those without represent extinct lineages/species.
Pages 134-135 of Notebook D record his famous reading of Malthus in September 1838 which crystallized the notion of natural selection. By 1840 the notebooks were largely finished. There is no evidence that the notebooks or their contents were 'secret' as sometimes claimed. Instead they carry his name and address on the inside covers in case he lost them. Indeed, we know that Darwin discussed evolution with "very many naturalists" in the decades before his theory was mature enough to publish. Notebooks M and N, however, mostly on expression of the emotions and which record details of family and friends, are alone labeled 'Private'.
After completing the notebooks Darwin adopted a new system of loose notes kept in numbered portfolios. He then cut many of the pages out of his old notebooks and filed them in the portfolios. The number of portfolios changed over the years of his research before he published his theory of evolution by natural selection in On the origin of species in 1859 and for use in subsequent projects. Some additional Darwin notebooks and notes in Darwin Online are also listed below to help readers find them.
Edinburgh diary for 1826. Text & image CUL-DAR129
Edinburgh notebook. Text & image CUL-DAR118
Cape de Verds notebook. Intro Text EH88202324
Rio notebook. Intro Text EH88202330
Buenos Ayres notebook. Intro Text EH88202332
Falkland notebook. Intro Text EH88202334
B. Blanca notebook. Intro Text EH88202331
St. Fe noteboo. Intro Text EH88202333
Banda Oriental notebook. Intro Text EH88202329
Port Desire notebook. Intro Text EH88202328
Valparaiso notebook. Intro Text EH88202335
Santiago notebook. Intro Text EH88202338
Galapagos notebook. Intro Text & image EH88202337
Coquimbo notebook. Intro Text EH88202336
Copiapò notebook. Intro Text EH88202327
Despoblado notebook. Intro Text EH88202326
Sydney notebook. Intro Text EH88202323
Red notebook Text Image PDF F1583e 
Beagle specimen notebooks:
Specimens in Spirits of Wine, 1 -1529
Specimens not in Spirits, 1-3906
Geological specimens notebooks, 12-3913 CUL-DAR236.1-4
Plants notebook. Text & image CUL-DAR237.3
Glen Roy notebook. Text & image CUL-DAR130
Notebook A: Geology. Text & image CUL-DAR127
Notebook B: Transmutation. Text & image CUL-DAR121
Notebook C: Transmutation. Text & image CUL-DAR122
Notebook D: Transmutation. Text & image CUL-DAR123
Notebook E: Transmutation. Text & image CUL-DAR124
Torn Apart notebook. Text & image CUL-DAR
Notebook M: Metaphysics on morals & expression. Text & image CUL-DAR12
Notebook N: Metaphysics & expression. Text & image CUL-DAR126
'Old and useless Notes about the moral sense & some metaphysical points'. Text & image CUL-DAR91.4-55
Personal 'Journal' (1838-81). Text & image CUL-DAR158.1-76
Questions & experiments (1839-44). Text & image CUL-DAR206.1
'Books to be read / Books Read' (1838-51). Text & image CUL-DAR119
'Books Read / Books to be Read' (1852-60). Text & image CUL-DAR128
'Books [read]' (1838-58). Text & image CUL-DAR120
Experiment Book (1855-67). Text & image PDF CUL-DAR157a.1-84
Down House notebook 1.1. Text & image EH88202321
Notebook on the Darwin children. Text CUL-DAR210.11.37
NOTE: Reproduced with the permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. Thanks to Adam Perkins and Gordon Chancellor.
Requests to reproduce manuscripts must be sent to the owner of the manuscript, not to Darwin Online. For those belonging to Cambridge University Library contact Imaging Services).
1 Barrett et al. 1987. Charles Darwin's notebooks, 1836-1844: Geology, transmutation of species, metaphysical enquiries. British Museum (Natural History); Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (F1817). Reproduction permission to include this work in Darwin Online was gratefully received from all living editors (except for one) and families of deceased edtors and the institutions which own the manuscripts and William Huxley Darwin.